I'm currently trying to refine my new core writing workflow, and looking fro glitches. I have discovered one described in
this thread.. afaics the simplest solution is having paragraphs separated into, wait for it,
paragraphs.
But that leaves in a markdown quandary.
I like my main workflow to be efficient. I am used to producing a new paragraph by typing Enter. I have been neutral about whether that paragraph is actually a paragraph (as in Word and other word processors, Scrivener etc) or a long single plaintext line as in most markdown editors; all I need is to be able to see
my paragraphs as separate and distinct. My formatting programs have options to convert lines to paragraphs. These markdown editors includes WriteMonkey and Obsidian, and there's no option to change the behaviour (see
this thread. Now I know that some apparently happily go Enter, Enter to achieve the blank line required to define a markdown paragraph, but I know I will never be one of them. My muscle memory is too strong. Even with a manual typewriter you could do CR LF with one hand then Tab with the other.
So the quandary.
- I could switch to doing the substantive writing in Typora
or MarkText which will do the required formatting. (As an addon, I could type in Word etc and copy/paste in). Not ideal, but not so bad; I'm used to writing in many programs. - I could give up putting the text into a file that swaps in and out of OPML. Certainly doable, but separates the synopsis and planning into a separate file from the text.
- I could investigate and tweak the conversion processes. Might be doable. But OPML syntax isn't massively well defined, I'd probably have to get to grips with the innards of pandoc, and there's a long history of OPML issues on the web many of which finger weird formatting on the part of Dynalist and Workflowy.
- I could find a different outliner that managed it all more successfully, but I don't know of another that has such a functional kanban as Workflowy.
My gut tells me to go with New Paragraph, because that's the dominant technology and expectation at most stages. Write in a program that does it with a single Enter. Double Entry in outliners or where otherwise necessary.
PS Had a further look at MarkText. Pretty well unusable for longer documents. No folding. No good navigation. Some aspects slow.
