Twincl Editor: A WYSIWYG/Markdown dual-mode editor

Markdown editor has become popular these days. Compared with HTML, its syntax is neat; composing long-form articles in Markdown can be very productive once you get the hang of it; developers love it because of the easy implementation. However, its learning curve is steep to many Internet users and its use of two panes, one for preview and one for edit, looks clumsy.

Twincl Editor, the editor used at this forum/blogging site Twincl.com, tries to solve the problem by combining the strengths of Markdown and the ease of use of WYSIWYG.

Features

  • In-place WYSIWYG (html mode) editing
  • In-place Markdown (text mode) editing
  • Seamless switch between the two modes, for a part or the whole of the document
  • Hotkeys ( on Mac, Alt on Windows) in both modes for common styling tasks and mode switching
  • No more Markdown editing with two panes (yay!)
  • Follows CommonMark mostly
  • Provides a smooth learning experience for those interested in using Markdown

Live demo

Click the ✎ Edit button at the upper right corner to try the editor. (The button is enabled for demo purpose only. If you try to submit the change, you’ll get rejected.)

Press the ›text button or its hotkey (+E or Alt+E) to switch to Markdown text mode, and the html‹ button/hotkey to switch back. This is the most interesting part of the editor.

Some notes:

  1. The RICH button is to add a RICH snippet. You may ignore it for now. If you are interested, see A Proposal for Rich Interactive Content Hypertext (RICH) for details.
  2. HTML editing behaves slightly differently across browsers. If something goes weird in html mode, switch to text mode to fix it (and kindly report the issue to us at /site/bugs if you would).

Saving documents

You may edit and save your personal documents on Twincl site after login. Click the dropdown menu on your name at the upper right corner and select “≻ Notes” to access the saved notes.

Conclusion

Twincl Editor’s accessible html mode provides common editing functionalities a writer needs. It doesn’t have to be comprehensive because it’s backed by Markdown mode. In fact, they complement each other.

Do you like the dual-mode editor idea? Let us know if you have any comments.

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