I agree. Whatever editor you use for markdown, if it strays outside standards, see if you can disable or avoid using those features. To go too far down that rabbit trail means it will be a lot of work to move your files to another system.
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Inspired by @BLUEFROG this weekend, I reviewed my markdown practices. My goal is to keep my markdown as clean and simple as possible, without missing out on any coding that I could be using. My goal is to keep my files as interoperable as possible.
If you haven’t thought about this much, here’s a good resource to get you going, particularly in building your awareness of the different ‘flavours’ of markdown.
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You’re of course right. OTOH, though, there are editors permitting to open/close “sections” by clicking on their headline. Visual Studio Code can do that. It’s only a visual gimmick, not changing the MD syntax nor semantics one bit.
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It is unfortunate that you dismiss foldable sections in that way. They are a key feature (desired by users and advertised as a key feature) by numerous note taking apps. It is also a key feature for outlining apps and something I find very attractive in when writing notes that have subsections. Even on the Mac I do not always have enough space for the inspector and with the side-by-side view for markdown, I even sometimes remove the left sidebar to focus on writing. Foldable sections are then very helpful. On the iPad and iPhone this can also a valuable help.
I, for one, wish DT would not stay away from such features 
Olaf
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iA Writer has folding for its Windows version, unfortunately missing from the Mac version. They have a video that shows how nicely this works and help writing longer texts:
I understand that on the Mac, with a big screen attached, one can use the sidebar and inspector to navigate sections but I find it for the laptop screen, iPad and iPhone a really good idea.
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Thanks all for this conversation. I have been struggling with these issues, too. Maybe someone here can help me with my questions below.
First, though, I want to say that I very much appreciate DT’s markdown integration and have shifted my note-taking and writing processes almost entirely to markdown. One of the biggest benefits for me is cross-device aesthetic usability, which is to say: like a webpage optimized to display content with equal legibility on everything from a large monitor to a tiny phone screen, my cloud-synced markdown documents are easy to write in and read on any device. Great for writing at my desk and then brainstorming further while riding the bus all in the same document, with always legible font size, headings, etc., for example.
However, echoing some of the comments above, when it comes to the aesthetics of the writing environment, which I feel are important to me psychologically when trying to create content, I like working in iA Writer better than DT. This is no problem on my Mac; I can just open a DT markdown document located in a cloud-synced DT databse with iA Writer instead of with DT, and when I’m finished, it saves back into DT and syncs to the cloud. This is great. But I haven’t figured out a way to do this with the same documents on iOS. They sync well to the iOS devices, but I’m unaware of a way to open them from DTTG into iA Writer and have them reliably save back into DTTG and sync properly, the way they do in DT on macOS. Am I missing something?
Meanwhile, I have tried to analyze what is the core reason why aesthetically I dislike DT’s markdown writing environment compared with iA Writer’s. It’s not a huge difference, and I’m pretty close to happy to just work in DT and DTTG for all markdown. Yet, I just don’t quite get that sense of psychological creative calm, which I treasure, when looking at markdown in DT/DTTG, but I do get it in iA Writer.
When I toggled a markdown document in DT on macOS to Full Screen, which I liked, I realized that perhaps the most important aesthetic difference is the extra white space on the margins (sides) of the text column that iA Writer includes and that DT also provides but only in full screen using DT on macOS. I realized what I want – without having to mess around with third-party style sheets, most of which I don’t like [EDIT: duh, this applies only to preview but I am mostly talking about edit window, so ignore] – is just the ability to create a little extra white-space padding on the sides of the text column, whether I’m working with a non-full screen document window on DT or a DTTG markdown document on my iPad. Comparing iA Writer and DTTG on an iPad really clarified the difference in aesthetic feel for me. (On the iPhone, never mind: the screen is already so small that more padding would be counter-productive.)
On DT on macOS in full screen we have a wonderful preference setting for the percentage (width) of the text column. This is exactly what I would want for non-full screen DT markdown windows and DTTG markdown windows. With that, I could perhaps happily give up iA Writer, at least on iOS.
Is there already a way to do this that I’m missing? If not, could it be implemented as a future feature, just as it already exists for full screen mode?
Thanks!
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If you just want extra white space on the sides, this is something you can achieve with a CSS file.
For me it is the opposite 
… When working with the laptop screen or an iOS device, I want to focus on the text on the screen, as much or as large as possible, not wasting screen estate for menus etc … BUT I also like to be able to navigate through sections, folding being one way to help working on notes that have subsections
Taking short notes on iOS and working with a large screen on the Mac, DT and DTTG give me all I need. The way iAWriter implemented the folding for Windows is very neat, does not take any extra screen estate.
PS: you can recreate the iA Writing experience to some extend. I downloaded their fonts and use them to write Markdown notes. If you get into CSS styling you can get quite far. @chrillek has some nice tutorials in the forum.
I however must admit that I always end up with a bit of frustration, not getting everything working whenever I try it. There is always a small thing that somehow does not work, which I cannot get working, and for which I cannot find an examples. For example, exporting Markdown texts into a PDF, they are with the default incredibly ugly, you cannot share them with others. The fonts too large etc. I managed to add some CSS when I want to export but that one has to do with manually everytime one wants to print or share something is not nice. I also managed block justification of the text, but failed to exclude headings and lists from block justification. So large parts of the text look now neater, but other elements look ugly … and so it goes for me, every time I have a go at CSS (or automation). I accept that it is mostly my fault but I would also claim that I should not invest so much time into such things that a normal user should have menus for … at least my feeling
Agree. The Markdown edit window in DT is not optimal. I tend to open my files in iA Writer. Yes, you can style the preview window with CSS, but not the edit window where I spend most of the time.
I wish for these features in markdown edit mode:
- Customized line height
- Customized total width
- Aligned sentences in lists (when a bullet sentence breaks into two lines it loses its indented position)
@BLUEFROG do you know if we can expect any improvements along these lines? Should I post it somewhere else?
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Good to hear these excellent additional suggestions—I concur those would also be nice. Ah yes, style sheets—you’re right! I forgot while writing that they are not even relevant to the edit window, which is mainly what I was focused on. Thank you for the clarification. All the more reason for the features you suggest.
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Posting it here is fine.
There are no concrete plans for changes to the source view at this time. Development would have to assess the requests.
Sorry, I’ve been hectic at work so I dropped my little bomb here two weeks ago and then never came back to see what had been said. Bad etiquette!
For me I was thinking about folding headings in the preview mode rather than editing mode, because it’s most valuable to me when I’m searching for something. If my document is long it’s nice to just fold all the sections I don’t need so that I don’t have to scroll as much. (Please don’t leave a comment about Zettelkasten 
I don’t want a million little notes, each a paragraph or less.)
I do use the TOC @brookter, I think it’s the same one you’re referring to (I’m not on my Mac right now so I can’t check): I just write {{TOC}} at the top of documents I want it in. I’d still use that even with folding headings - I’m greedy and want both!
@Wolkenhauer do you mean you never quite get your DT Markdown editor looking how you’d like? If you have the same problem as me, it’s because the editor settings in the menu are for plain text extension files, whereas my markdown files are .md. It took me aaaages to realise why the editor wasn’t using the colours I’d set.
Since I wrote this I’ve tinkered with a couple of Markdown editors and decided I don’t like any of them so I’m still using DT’s currently.
it’s because the editor settings in the menu are for plain text extension files, whereas my markdown files are .md.
The plain text font settings apply to the edit mode of Markdown in DEVONthink as it’s just a plain text view.
Actually, {{TOC}} is something different – it’s just the standard multimarkdown way of building an ‘in-document’ static table of contents.
I’m talking about DT3’s dyname table of contents features. This doesn’t need {{TOC}}. Instead it scans the document and builds a clickable table of content based on your heading, even if {{TOC}} isn’t present.
As you can see, I’ve clicked on Heading 2.1 in the table of contents page and it’s moved to the correct point in both the text and the preview.
If you want actual folding text, I think you need to change the CSS and possibly use javascript as well. I’m not in a position to find it as this moment, but I’m fairly sure I’ve seen a post from one of the experts (@Bluefrog, perhaps) showing how this can be done. It’s beyond my level of skill, though…
HTH.
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This would only work in the preview view. They’re talking about the edit view, I believe.
I don’t quite see how CSS would help with folding sections, though. The detail/summary element does that, but using it for headlines goes against the semantics of those. And why would I’ve want to have folding sections in the HTML preview, anyway?
Thanks, but I do think it’s Preview mode they’re after.
I’ve definitely seen previews which do this but I don’t know the details of how. I wondered if this link How To Create a Collapsible would work, but I’m not an expert and haven’t tried it.
You’re right. It was too early for me.
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I sympathise! I was woken by the dog greeting the milkman at 5.45 this morning…
Ah, I think then there might be a bug? These are my settings:
And this is how editing mode looks:
Weirdly it says it’s writing in pink font, but it is not.
To be fair, this is an incredibly minor thing and it’s hardly worth commenting on 
But I am using those settings (background colour, font colour and font) to make “rapid” changes to editing mode whenever the mood strikes me.
I didn’t know this exists! It’s brilliant, thank you! I think actually I don’t need collapsible headings, because this does exactly what I was after! In fact it’s even better, because I can see the entire “column” of the file’s contents in one screen, even while viewing sections!
I retract my request for collapsible headings @BLUEFROG. DT is one step ahead as usual 
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