I am a big fan of Markdown. There’s just something about its syntax that really clicks for me. If nothing else, it minimizes the number of times I need to reach for a mouse, which is always nice. As a familiarization project, I planned to start off 2021 by writing a parser for Markdown documents. As I started checking out other parsers, however, I got excited with how robust and fast existing solution are. I was particularly drawn to how easily many of the major packages can be extended. Rather than reinvent the wheel with a brand new parser, I think I would rather do something creative with one of these existing solutions.
I have never put the time into understanding desktop publishing software properly. For the handful of times I use it a year, I typically just bash things together until it looks fine, and quickly export it to a static format before I mess anything up. For me, learning the proper workflow is a bit of a dead end because of how infrequently I need to use it. On the other hand, HTML and CSS are technologies I use frequently. Why not create an application meant to leverage those skills for print media.
Goals
- Basic markdown text editor with support for CommonMark syntax.
- Easy switching between Markdown and CSS editing.
- Live Preview
- Print dimensions should be set in the Markdown file.