I started using markdown as my primary document format, but the tools I'm using are very rudimentary. I use VS CODE + MD ext + Grammarly. I wrote a few scripts for cleaning up folders and committing text and images to GitHub. Then I have to copy the text to DEV.TO and other platforms, manually upload images, replace their URLs, preview, etc, etc. It feels harder than it needs to be.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make it more streamlined?
Top comments (48)
I recently created a Notion account to manage my blog drafts. I write all my posts in there, and export them as markdown. You can also show your drafts on a calendar so you can plan out your content for the month, it's pretty cool.
💯 what i do.
I was considering using Notion, but didn't know you can export as MD. Do you have to change anything after the export? E.g. image URLs? How do you do that?
Images I would do manually. Since I need to save them to a folder in my repo first, and then refer to them in my posts.
I really like Typora typora.io/
I like that it has typewriter and focus mode. It does a live transform of your md, so you don’t see the “raw” content, this could be a pro or con depending on your preference
DEV has an API
docs.dev.to/api/
I have ideas, but not time, to implement something to synchronise articles published there to a GitHub repo.
So for now I'm pretty much doing like you: GitHub + VS Code + Copy paste
With GitHub pages you can use Dev.to>settings>publishing from RSS pointed at the feed.xml.
Now it starts looking like there is a solution, at least for dev.to.
I was using iA Writer, but recently switched to Ulysses.
Typora is very similar to iA Writer and free
I was checking it, but I didn't like it. I've spent a month looking for a free md editor, but, like always, I've ended up paying for some niche feature, because it's "essential" for me :-D
I write posts for my Jekyll-powered blog locally using VSCode and a couple markdown extensions, then I cross post them here. I host that blog with Github pages, so once I've published it it's pretty easy to paste the markdown here and simply point the images to my repo (much faster for me than using the built-in image uploader).
Codepens can be a little irritating to convert though, still looking for a better solution there.
Nathan, how do you point images to the repo? I presume they are relative paths in the original markdown. Do you have a script or do it by hand? And does GitHub mind?
Hey Max – when I'm writing markdown locally for my Jekyll-powered blog, I use relative links.
Since I use Github Pages for hosting, once I push my post to the repository, I can just grab the image links from the resulting webpage that's live on my blog. I do it by hand currently, but I still find it faster than using the Dev.to image upload utility.
Honestly, there is probably a better way. But it's worked well enough for me so far!
Vim with:
To create new drafts, a short bash script: nn.sh
All Markdown files are store in a private Github repo. It includes notes, long form documents, blogposts drafts, and a journal.
My websites are Wordpress, so I use another short script that takes a blog draft, uploads it, and then files it away in an archive folder.
Everything runs on a VPS, so I can access it from any device. From my iPhone I use Working Copy for Git and IA Writer.
Nice! Thanks for posting this — you have helped my journey to vimmify anything and everything 😅
I've been planning to write up an article about the whole process, just haven't had time.
Running everything from a VPS is a game changer for me.
Tools I can totally rely on
My own work, that I can't really rely on that much
I have a question, though. How do I create more images, like custom Hero image and memes?
I really like and recommend Typora!
I write using amazing note taking app Bear for Mac. I then export it my post as
.mdfile, open it in MacDown to do final touches if needed and copy paste into dev.to editor :-)I use VS code with few plugins so that all the content goes to my GitHub repo. Later, using rss feed I pull it to dev.to for cross post.
VSCode - A perfect setup for Github pages project
Mahendran ・ May 18 ・ 4 min read
I just write on Dev.to directly
I use notion.so and export it as markdown and post it on my GH pages site, then I will cross-post it here. I am thinking about automating it through the RSS feed setup.
Notion really helps me document and triage my ideas for both blogs and small side projects.
Images are one kind of issues for me to be able to easily post them. I am avoiding images whenever I can for this reason.
I love cowriters.app/, because it has a nice, clean interface. Most importantly, it requires you to write at least 200 words before publishing to their platform, meaning you can't just write garbage about some random topic.
I use StackEdit. It’s web based and shows a preview. It integrates with GitHub and all sorts of other things
I used the same! Much easier!
I've seen the link in dev.to to create a site from your content and wanted to reccomend it to others to get started. How is it?
Not sure if that helps but I created my own flat-file-cms typemill with a visual markdown editor. For RSS-Export you could create a little plugin (or create your own api-endpoint) ... :)