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Amrith
Left — A minimalist multi-platform text editor
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Left is a distraction-free, minimal note-taking tool for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Replies
Jess Bahr
It's so beautiful. I've used Sublime to take notes for years but moving over to Left.
Ashish Kumar
Curious as to why would you create a new editor instead of a theme? For eg: I know about this minimalistic theme for Atom https://github.com/apex/apex-ui
Devine Lu Linvega
Maker
@ashfame Yeah that's a good question. Left was actually initially created for our personal usage(we are in the process of publishing a short novel). And its main features were meant to be only the synonym dictionary, as well as the speed reader, and the markup navigation. Which Atom does not have, also, Atom, for some reason doesn't work well on our older machines, is slow to the point of being unusable.
Amrith
Hunter
@ashfame @neauoire sweet!
Ashish Kumar
@neauoire Sublime? I believe plugins & themes on both Atom & Sublime are possible. Also Sublime is native hence lightweight, I believe? Anyway, good exercise if you wanted to create an editor yourself, but sounds like an overkill solution when you just wanted to add features. Nonetheless, congrats on shipping! Always feel good to create something.
Devine Lu Linvega
Maker
@ashfame It's funny you mention Sublime, because this whole thing started with Sublime, I actually built the speed reader and synonym dictionary feature as Sublime plugins at first. It was a less than fun experiment, but I learnt a lot in the process. When I got around to building a dynamic markup navigation.. well things started to crumble, and fall apart. I couldn't believe that making something so simple was such a pain, so I just scrapped everything, and went ahead and built Left, knowing that ultimately we'd need an exporter to PDF and various print formatting features, I didn't want to be bothered to build atop Sublime's plugin infrastructure. Anyways :) Making your own things is fun. https://twitter.com/neauoire/sta...
KC Kern
Regex find-and-replace or GTFO
Devine Lu Linvega
Maker
@kckern I'd merge that PR.
Adam Davies
Looks pretty 😬
Deleted User
I love this! The default font size is too tiny for me though, and zoom isn't saved between sessions. Any chance yall are planning to add that?
Devine Lu Linvega
Maker
@bryantpeng Oh! Yes, let me add the zoom value to the localStorage. I will push the updated build this afternoon.
Devine Lu Linvega
Maker
@bryantpeng I haven't gotten around to doing it yet. I'll try to do it tomorrow, it's been a pretty busy day.
Sonny Lazuardi
nice work @neauoire and @rekkabell
Harish Kotra
Wait, how do I change the themes?
Devine Lu Linvega
Maker
@harishkotra Just drag them on the window.
Amrith
Hunter
Love how clean your work is @neauoire and @rekkabell 🖤 Does this substitute for a code-editor as well? If not, syntax highlighting would look great in this!
Devine Lu Linvega
Maker
@rekkabell @amrith It shouldn't. It doesn't have syntax highlight and language autocomplete. But I still use it from time to time to write yaml database stuff ;)
David Hellmann
Advantages to iA Writer / Bear and Stuff like this?
Eka

Beautiful simple text editor, perfect for quick scribbling (eg. blog post ideas and the like)

Pros:

Simple, beautiful minimalist Markdown text editor; themes; "sticky" outline sidebar

Cons:

Default OSX shortcuts (full screen, close tab/file) don't work

Devine Lu Linvega
Maker
cmd+w should close a file similarly to other text applications like Sublime. And fullscreen is cmd+enter, similarly to other applications. What would be a better shortcut for fullscreen?
Duarte Martins
You have a very specific use case. I just use simplenote for notes and it works wonders. Lovely design on Left, well done.
Jonathan Völkle

I used my code editor before to take note, but Left is the better option, especially if you want to use markdown. Left displays the headings on the left, to stay organized and fast access different subheadings.

Pros:

Elegant, simple text editor with markdown support

Cons:

None

Zach Dubos
Absolutely beautiful.
Benn Crawford

It's so fresh and so clean. I seems 'basic' but when you account for the

spacing and structural considersations made, time has clearly been spent on Left.

The theme are a nice touch as is this being open source! The people behind Left are dudes!

Pros:

Simple, elegant, sexy even.

Cons:

Constrast on some themes is not accessible - no spell check

Benn Crawford
Spell check coming soon?
Devine Lu Linvega
Maker
@be2n Sure! I'll add it right away, give me an hour or two. Are you on Windows or OSX?
Devine Lu Linvega
Maker
@be2n I've spoken too fast, adding a spellchecker is a lot more work than I expected. I'll have to cogitate on this a bit longer..
Devine Lu Linvega
Maker
@be2n I'm one step ahead :) I've been spending on time on this and I have hunspell implemented. It works almost reliably.
Benn Crawford
@neauoire any news on the spell check?
Earnest Tao
This is my dream writer
Clo
Hi @neauoire and @rekkabell Damn, Left feels good to use. Just the right features, nothing unnecessary. I had a few questions but found my answers here:
Also it seems that a few features don't work on Windows, like drag-and-dropping an existing .doc file to open it, and some other smaller / non-blocking stuff. Also, you. live. on. a. boat. And you make games. Gonna go check them out.
Devine Lu Linvega
Maker
@rekkabell @clo_spa Thanks :) Yeah, .docs/.docx might generate a couple of weird side effects as it is not a raw-text file format, but a sort of RTC with lots of custom markups. Let us know what you think, and if you have anything you'd like for us to add — and we'll implement it :) !
Brandon Hill

Favorite color is matte black so already a huge +. Second, the progress bar at the bottom is a game changer. Thank you for this amazing work fam

Pros:

Gorgeous, simple, and matte black

Cons:

None so far

Rubén

I decided to start using this text editor instead of the default one, as it's really simple and free of distractions, setup and preferences menus, and random options.

It feels perfect for fast note taking while working on any project or looking for info around the web

Pros:

Simple and to the point. Perfect look if you like minimalistic design

Cons:

Can't think of any

Pavel Krivoshapkin
Make TextEdit great again