Markdown Editor with VIM!

If you are a Vim user and you edit a lot of Markdown files, this is the app for you!

On iPad and Mac, you edit and preview Markdown side-by-side. The editor has Vim emulation and automatically scrolls the Markdown preview as you scruff around in the editor.

You can also see all the headings in the Markdown document and scroll both panes to a particular heading with a tap in the Outline Viewer.

Vim Emulation

Because real Vim is hard to get working on iOS, this app uses vim emulation. That means not all features you may be used to are supported. Learn more about Vim emulation.

Cloud Storage

There are two ways to use cloud storage. Choose one or the other (but not both):

1. Choose a folder on your Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive in Settings inside the app.
2. From your home screen, go to Settings->Apps->Markdown Editor and set Document Storage to your cloud drive.

Folder Browser

Use the Folder Browser to select which Markdown file to edit. By default the Folder Browser uses the app’s Documents folder, but if you select a custom folder in Settings it will be used instead.

Cloud Sync of folder with Dropbox, OneDrive, etc

While Cloud Sync of a selected folder is supported for these apps, iOS does not reliably sync non-iCloud drive folders in the background. Unfortunately that means you will have to open your drive folder in the Files app to force a sync each time you make a change. After you do, your remote changes should appear automatically in the editor.

Using iCloud instead is recommended if you want multi-device sync.

Smart Fallback to Insert Mode

When your external keyboard is disconnected, the app will go to insert mode so you can still edit files with your onscreen keyboard. Note that you cannot use vim’s normal mode with an onscreen keyboard. Also note that if you have devices connected that pretend to be keyboards (some mice do this), disconnecting your keyboard will not trigger insert mode.

On iPad, there is also a button in the toolbar to toggle the onscreen keyboard. You might also have to mess with the keyboard settings at the bottom of the screen to get the onscreen keyboard to show.

Hide Markdown with Fold Markers

Wrap Markdown content with Vim fold markers {{{...}}} to hide it in the preview (use the command ,[ in visual mode to quickly fold selected text).

Vim Emulation Bugs?

There are currently bugs and omissions in the Vim emulation, but it will improve with time. If there is a bug or omission in the Vim emulation that is bothering you, please complain to markdown-vim@luminous-services.com. I will fix any problems reported.

Custom Keyboard Shortcuts

The leader key and leader key shortcuts are not configurable in this app, but there are a few pre-defined shortcuts that you might want to use:

• ,b - Open folder browser
• ,[ - Wrap current text in {{{…}}} (vim fold)

Device Compatibility

This app has been tested on iPhones, 11” iPads, and 13” iPads.

Known Issues

• Preview only scrolls when vim normal mode cursor goes over a Markdown heading (ideally it would scroll to match any Markdown content).
• Preview scrolling is slow and sometimes breaks in really large Markdown documents. Yeah, it sucks.
• When multiple headings in the document have the same title, it will sometimes scroll to the wrong heading.

Contact

If you have questions or concerns, please reach out to me at: markdown-vim@luminous-services.com

Supported VIM Keys (partial list)

Command Mode

• :w - Write (save) current file
• :e - Revert current file to saved version
• :e {filename} - Edit file in selected folder (or Documents, if no folder selected)
• :{number} - Go to line number (e.g., :42)

Mode Switching

• Escape - Exit to normal mode (from any mode)
• i - Enter insert mode at cursor
• a - Enter insert mode after cursor
• A - Enter insert mode at end of line
• I - Enter insert mode at first non-whitespace character
• o - Insert new line below and enter insert mode
• O - Insert new line above and enter insert mode
• s - Substitute character (delete and enter insert mode)
• S - Substitute line (delete line content and enter insert mode)
• C - Change to end of line (delete to end and enter insert mode)
• v - Enter visual mode
• V - Enter visual line mode
• : or ; - Enter command mode

Movement (Normal Mode)

Basic Movement

• h - Move left
• j - Move down
• k - Move up
• l - Move right

Word Movement

• w - Move to next word start
• b - Move to previous word start
• e - Move to end of current word

Line Movement

• 0 - Move to beginning of line
• ^ - Move to first non-whitespace character
• $ - Move to end of line

Page Movement

• Control-U - Scroll half page up
• Control-D - Scroll half page down
• gg - Go to first line
• G - Go to last line (not implemented yet)

Character Search

• f{char} - Find character forward on line
• F{char} - Find character backward on line
• t{char} - Move to before character forward on line
• T{char} - Move to after character backward on line

Search

• / - Start forward search
• n - Repeat last search forward
• N - Repeat last search backward

Text Modification (Normal Mode)

Delete

• x - Delete character under cursor
• dw - Delete word
• dd - Delete current line
• D - Delete to end of line

Yank (Copy)

• yy or Y - Yank (copy) current line
• p - Put (paste) after cursor
• P - Put (paste) before cursor

Change Case

• ~ - Toggle case of character under cursor

Replace

• r{char} - Replace character under cursor with {char}

Join

• J - Join current line with next line

Undo/Redo

• u - Undo last change
• Control-R - Redo last undone change

Visual Mode

Visual Selection

• h, j, k, l - Extend selection
• 0 - Extend selection to beginning of line
• d or x - Delete selected text
• y - Yank (copy) selected text

Visual Line Mode

• j, k - Extend line selection
• d or x - Delete selected lines
• y - Yank (copy) selected lines
• gq - Wrap selected text at 80 columns

Text Formatting

• gq - Wrap current paragraph at 80 columns (works in normal and visual line modes)