Poll: Primary Note Format Choice

  • Plain Text
  • Rich Text
  • Markdown
  • Formatted Note
  • HTML

0 voters

Just curious as to the user-breakdown
As an Evernote convert, my 20K notes are Formatted Note
Formatted Note is my choice
I’m comfortable accessing and modifying markup code but I prefer the code be hidden in general use

All my Evernote notes are formatted notes, obviously, but all new notes are MD at this point.

Just as PDF became the standard of its kind fairly early on; in part because Microsoft insisted in deviating from HTML standards, Markdown surely has a correspondingly bright future as a default.

An argument could be made for completely formless plain text, but there’d have to be headings, bolds and lists - at the least.

I might have said RTF until I upgraded to Big Sur to find that major bugs and crashes make TextEdit at best… unreliable.

imho HTML is still the format “future”, but I prefer WYSIWYG editing
(Markdown is a superset of HTML)

The poll results from a small sample indicates the preferred DT note format/editor is
. predominantly Markdown, followed by Rich Text
. Last place is shared by a tie between Formatted Note and Plain Text

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Html is a descendant of SGML. It uses a completely different syntax then MD. It has a bunch of semantic elements missing in MD like nav, article, section. Not to mention elements like audio and video. It is built on the idea of a document object model of which MD has no idea at all.
Why exactly is MD a „superset“ of HTML?

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A markdown document can include markdown syntax elements, plus html syntax elements.

MD is pure text. It can contain C- or AppleScript-Code, for example. Does that make it a superset of C or AppleScript?
The history and goals of MD and HTML are very different. I’m aware of the close relationship between them, but it’s just that - a close relationship. And historically, I think, MD had been invented because it was easier to write than HTML. Which would make it more of a sub- than a superset.

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HTML is also “pure text”
The goals are the same (markup) but I agree markdown syntax is easier to write (and read)

In formal logic a superset contains all the items in/attributes of the (subset) and more.

And a subset contains nothing which is not in its superset.

Given the differences in purpose, syntax and usage between HTML and MD, would is perhaps be a little more accurate to say that their sets (or attributes and capabilities) overlap and are related; but in no case is one congruent with the other, nor intended to be?

Thanks, @DTLow (with the fantastic owl) for promoting this discussion :slight_smile: .

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