I think the reasons for this are simple:
- The editor is (largely) bug-free. So, few complaints there.
- The editor is functionally adequate. So, few complaints there.
- Support for (Apple-)scripting is robust. So, few complaints there.
These facts leave “visual effects” as a source of consternation for some. Not for all, but for some. As is to be expected.
For me, I wish that the cognitive dissonance that I experience in two very common scenarios could be ameliorated:
- The current implementation of lists creates a visual mess (a form of “visual effect”) in documents of any complexity, because there’s no hanging indentation of items.
- Why is blockquoted text styled with a thick blue left border and in italics? Simple indentation, relying on the "> " markdown as the visual cue of a blockquoted passage, would suffice, but again, with the hanging indentation consistent with the first line; that is to say that hanging indentation to be set at the point after the leading "> " in the first line. And the obtrusive blue border serves no purpose other than to distract, and the italics styling serve the purpose of … what is the purpose of this? Is it supposed to be quasi-WYSISYG? (which would of course depend on the CSS in effect for rendering the text…I am casting about for reasons). Whatever the reason, it makes me ask What the purpose of this? every time I look at it. And the visual editing behavior of typing Return causing the block quote to break and necessitate typing “>” to re-initiate, causing another spasm as the view updates, leaves a lot to be desired. This is especially distracting when editing within a blockquoted passage. (A smoother experience would be, when typing Return, for block quoting to continue, and be canceled upon typing Return twice.)
And, the editor is partially WYSIWYG-enabled in that struck through text is rendered as struck through. And emboldened text as emboldened, italicized…header text…except when included in a blockquote…inconsistencies, which, along with the exceptions noted above, induces more cognitive dissonance.
See the images (“as-is” and “suggested”) as illustration. These “visual effects” break flow and induce frustration. Simply because I have trouble reading what I’ve written. Yes, I could purchase some other editor, and go through gyrations to use it in concert with DEVONthink, but I have an editor, and I’d like it to be more accommodating, and for flow to be preserved, aided by not having to switch applications to edit text.
Of course, I could use RTF…except that RTF is not fully supported in DTTG (despite valiant efforts by the DEVON devs; Apple apparently is not cooperative with upkeep.) Or plain text, but there’s no formatting available for plain text (the point of plain text is to be plain, of course). Formatted Notes do not support lists, and the proposal that I write and maintain HTML is to me simply ludicrous.
This leaves…Markdown. Which I use, and wrestle with, every day.
(PS: would the DEVON team please consider my suggestions above as enhancement requests? (Please don’t take my mockup literally, but only as a mockup/illustration of concepts.) Thank you, and thank you for the great product that DEVONthink is.)
