Visual editing (WYSIWYG)

We’ll provide an official update in a few days, but right now it doesn’t seem like we’ll make it that quickly.

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Hi, can you show us a preview of what the new WYSIWYG editor would look like?
Can you add rich content in the notes with the new editor similar to evernote?

I think that is not part of the WYSIWYG. The main thing is to get rid of the markdown syntax and format the text event when you are editing a node.

How’s this going? Anything you can share yet?

Steve.

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Currently still backlogged since we’re focusing on Obsidian, but we’ll be taking the learning we get while working on it as a beta software and re-incorporating it back to Dynalist!

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Obsidian has a keyboard shortcut for Star/Unstar. Just saying…

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Could you explain a bit more what you mean by “rich content in the notes”?

You got it :wink:

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:+1: thanks!

What if… you followed the Excel approach: had the row stay formatted but when editing the formula (i.e. markdown) appears in an edit box at the top.

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I like it. That would be a preferable workaround if it meant getting the feature sooner.

Hi Erica,

I would love to hear about WYSIWYG. Last comment in sept 2020. Is it still in the pipe ? Or still very busy with Obsidian ? I’m a bit worried about the capacity to manage two software in // :slight_smile:
I really hope I’m wrong !
Thanks anyway, Dynalist is my most useful app cross platform, without an hesitation.

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If somehow this is an easier compromise than full WYSIWYG, I would LOVE if rendered elements only unrendered when they themselves are clicked. Instead of unrendering the whole node when it’s in focus, only unrender things when the cursor is touching the markdown code itself. If my caret is not touching the markdown for an image it’s REALLY disorienting for it to disappear into markdown. Typically images are to-dos and typical a node is in focus because you want to SEE the stuff and deal with it, and NEVER do I want to edit the markdown of an uploaded image if my caret is not touching it.

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I gotta put in my vote against that…
In terms of UI/UX my preference is

  1. Google Docs level WYSIWYG
  2. Elements remain rendered when the caret is not touching their ASCII characters, but as soon as you arrow key over to it, it unrenders to markdown. Demo: https://typora.io/img/beta.mp4
  3. How it is now
  4. Rendered and markdown both showing at the same time in two places on my screen - I really hate this style of app, tried it with obsidian, cant stand it
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I think the approach with markdown and keyboard shortcuts is one of the core things that makes Dynalist amazing. I’d prefer if the interface wasn’t diluted with WYSIWYG, unless it can be done in a way that is purely optional and doesn’t introduce large overheads that detract from efforts to improve and maintain the tool in other ways.

I see why it would be a popular feature because it’s newbie-friendly, but I want to use Dynalist as an expert tool and as another user mentioned WYSIWYG very often destroys expert tools.

I see that you’re interested in preserving that integrity @Shida and I commend you for that, I’m just adding my voice :slight_smile:

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Although I would prefer WYSIWYG, I am not opposed to markdown. One of the biggest frustrations I have right now is the way the node changes when you enter into its space. The markdown, especially links, suddenly expand and make it difficult to read the text and know where to make edits. I like BigChungus’ idea of the markdown not showing until the cursor touches that particular element. But I think the best solution (and probably the hardest) would be to have both a WYSIWYG and markdown interface that could be toggled in the user settings. We can dream big, right?

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You might feel that way because you only use a subset of the markdown available and stick mainly to plain text? Try creating a list of nodes, each containing several images and base64 URLs and internal links. It’s a nightmare and makes editing take 10x as long no matter how expert you are. But yeah, I guarantee if WYSIWYG comes out there will be an off button. It’s polarizing for sure.

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My struggle is with hyperlinks in notes, and I feel like this is the one thing that gets in my way when using Dynalist. I’m really hoping one of these solutions is still in the works!

My use case: My preferred way to display notes is 1st line only. Many of my notes are multi-line, and showing the full note takes up too much space for my regular, default view.

When using “1st Line” (or “Hide”) and clicking into a note to view it, Markdown becomes active since you are editing. The issue is this makes all of the links in your notes un-clickable! Meaning the only way to effectively make use of hyperlinks in notes is to only use the “Show” setting, where all notes are expanded making it more difficult to navigate and view your Dynalist.

I’d totally settle for keyboard shortcuts instead of a full WYSIWYG editor if it can be implemented faster.

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I agree with your wish, but in the meantime (if you’re on Windows) you can use AutoHotkey with a script I wrote to launch hyperlinks using a keyboard shortcut.

(I chose Ctrl+Enter, but since this conflicts with Dynalist’s global search shortcut, you may want to change it. Also, it will launch only the first hyperlink found in the current item or note.)

Obsidian WYSIWYG mode is very close to release https://forum.obsidian.md/t/obsidian-release-v0-13-0-insider-build/26919

Will it trickle down to dynalist? We can hope

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