Backpager, an online web editor

[justice]

Over the last day I put together Backpager. Backpager is an online Markdown editor. You can use Backpager as an WYSIWYG Markdown editor (obviously) because the syntax is converted on the fly. You can also use it when you quickly need to write some HTML. This makes it very suitable for uses like:

* web content editing
* writing technical documentation

It might not do too much yet but I'd like to hear your ideas and comments on how to improve it. It's put together with WMD-new, Jquery-ui and Minify URI Builder and a little sprinkle of css/jss/php/htaccess. Over the last few weeks I have been writing installation documentation and combining shell commands, textfile content and instructions just gets confused/messy very quick. This should make it easier. Note: If you use Internet Explorer the experience will be less than ideal.

Site: Backpager

[cranioscopical]

That looks pretty good!   

[Stoic Joker]

That looks pretty good!   

-cranioscopical (June 07, 2011, 09:33 AM)

Hell yeah, and he put it together in a day...Now that is impressive!

[40hz]

Played with it briefly today. It is very cool.  

Quick question for Justice: Why did you set it up as an online rather than desktop hosted app?

I'm always curious about why developers choose one approach over the other. Not being a software developer myself, I haven't a clue, so please forgive me if it's a naive question.  

[tomos]

I know nothing about this stuff so thought I'd have a look - with the preview I'm bound to (maybe) learn a little

I just copied all the sample syntax into the left pane and previewed it
a couple of very minor things struck me as odd (if I've completely misunderstood things there's no need to explain it all !):

1] Left pane says:

Preceded by a space, the colon disappears. :

Preview says:

Preceded by a space, the colon disappears. :

but the colon is still there...
__________________

2] Left pane says:

> > > * You can quote a list. > * Etc.

showed as this in the preview (it may well be correct - I just presumed it should be a list):

> * You can quote a list. * Etc.

[justice]

Thanks for the feedback all!  

Quick question for Justice: Why did you set it up as an online rather than desktop hosted app?

-40hz (June 07, 2011, 03:11 PM)

Interesting question, I have been thinking about it and it really comes down to 3 things. 1) The editor framework and interface framework were already available as javascript libraries - where as with a desktop app the development process would become more complicated. 2) I can't program desktop apps, except in AutoHotkey which becomes unwieldy (imho) as soon as you want to do something nonstandard. 3) I wouldn't have made it if I couldn't get some sort of prototype up running quickly.

a couple of very minor things struck me as odd (if I've completely misunderstood things there's no need to explain it all !):

-tomos (June 07, 2011, 03:18 PM)

Either the syntax page is for a different markdown library (with added features) or the library I use to 'convert' the code has a few issues. I don't think they're common so the easiest solution is to remove them from the syntax page   You're right in your expectations tomos.