#IA WRITER BROWSER ANDROID#
#IA WRITER BROWSER CODE#

As with all of my other tools, Merlot saves its data in an open, compatible format (simple Markdown files) in a storage location I control on my own servers.īeyond these key features, Merlot also supports live preview as you're writing, as well as a nice dark mode.

Merlot's flavor of Markdown provides a !html syntax to explicitly denote HTML snippets to embed into my Markdown files. One of my main qualms with writing Markdown content for my blogs is that my current engine (Hugo) doesn't give me a way to explicitly designate certain sections as safe HTML content - the engine tries to infer this, which is often unsafe. I wanted a good quality writing experience everywhere, which meant building for the web.

#IA WRITER BROWSER ANDROID#

iA Writer has apps available on Android and Windows, but the experiences there are subpar. iA Writer itself has no sharing functionality, so I integrated the ability to share a preview of a file right into Merlot through the 'Share' button, which opens a public preview. I often want to write short documents or notes to share with a few people quickly, and Google Docs and Notion feel too heavy. I designed Merlot so I could perform 99% of day-to-day operations in the editor without my hands leaving the keyboard. It was clean and fast and did what it did very well, but missing some features - the features that Merlot adds. Before I wrote Merlot, I was a heavy user of iA Writer, a Mac app for writing in Markdown. That means I can design a tool around my workflows rather than the other way around, making sure that the tool works with the grain of my mental models. I always try to discover a personal workflow first, before building a tool for myself around it. Some design and workflow inspirations for Merlot include Notea, Notion, and iA Writer. I also shared my process of building Merlot on Twitter. It uses a Markdown library for Ink that I wrote specifically for this app, which you can find in lib/.

#IA WRITER BROWSER CODE#

The September compiler is used to compile UI code written in Ink to a JavaScript bundle for the browser. Merlot is written in pure Ink and depends on Torus for rendering. In fact, this very README was written in Merlot! It replaces iA Writer for me as my primary blogging and writing app, while filling in some other use cases I had in mind like sharing drafts. Merlot is a web-based writing app that supports Markdown.

Ia writer browser