new | ask | show | jobs
Show HN: MarkNote – Local-First Wysiwyg Markdown Editor (Tauri/Rust)
1 points by cacao-cacao 10 hours ago | 2 comments

I've been a long-time user of Typora, which I still think is a fantastic piece of software. However, as I used it daily, I felt there were areas that could be pushed further—specifically regarding modern extensible editor engines, more flexible diagram support, and overall performance footprint. This led me to build MarkNote.

Why Tauri & Rust? I chose Tauri over Electron because I wanted MarkNote to be as lightweight and fast as possible. By leveraging Rust, we get a much smaller binary size and better memory management while maintaining full cross-platform support (macOS, Windows, and Linux).

Key Philosophy:

WYSIWYG: Built on CodeMirror 6, providing a seamless "what you see is what you get" experience without a split-pane.

Local-first & Privacy: Your data never leaves your machine. No accounts, no cloud required.

No Subscriptions: I personally dislike the "everything as a service" trend. MarkNote is a one-time purchase ($39), with a generous free tier.

Developer Friendly: Built-in support for Mermaid, PlantUML, and even Excalidraw.

I'm currently in the early stages and would love to hear your feedback—especially from those who use Markdown for documentation, note-taking, or technical writing.

Leftium 4 hours ago  [ - ]

Another Show HN recently became my default markdown editor: https://hw.leftium.com/#/item/47015111

Interestingly, MarkNote has two features I requested for Prism:

1. Search

2. Sidebar that shows directory tree with multiple documents (like mdserve)

So I tried MarkNote, but these are dealbreakers for me:

- Prefer seeing actual MD rendering vs WYSIWYG.

  - The layout shifts as WYSIWYG is toggled to MD text (even though it's just that line, it's distracting/annoying)

  - Tables and code blocks look weird.

  - Also strange window management UI for code blocks was confusing; accidentally deleted a few code blocks. Luckily my MD file was versioned via git!
- Not sure if I want auto-save (see above)

This is another local-first editor I would prefer using (no install required): https://stackedit.io

---

I also prefer installing via brew. Otherwise macOS doesn't allow you to run the app (because it's not signed?). I think homebrew signs the app for you.

---

I don't think I would have tried MarkNote if it didn't have the free tier, given other editors are sufficient for my needs. And I'm not sure if I would ever need any of the pro features.

cacao-cacao 3 hours ago  [ - ]

Thank you for trying the app and for your feedback. In the upcoming version, I will make auto-save an option that can be disabled in the settings. The layout shift issue will also continue to be improved to provide a better user experience.