Panda release notes 1.0(532) - Markdown Hiding and Headers

[matteo]

Greetings to our alpha testing crew! Today we have an exiting new build to test. It’s only two new features, but they’re big new features and have been major requests from the community for some time! We’ll definitely need your feedback on these.

An experiment in hiding Markdown

This has been a common request since our early days, so we’re trying an experiment with this alpha release. As of this first test of hiding Markdown, it is enabled by default. You can toggle it under the Format > Auto Hide Markdown menu. And like that…

it’s gone.

(That’s Keyser Söze from The Usual Suspects, a great film if you haven’t seen it)

Of course, whether Markdown is visible or not, you can still copy and export notes as Markdown, and do everything else that makes Markdown great in Bear. But for those who want it out of the way, even if only sometimes, we’d really love to hear your feedback on our first shot at this.

Keep in mind that this is an experimental feature, and not guaranteed to ship publicly. But enough of us on the team helped fight for it, so you have people on the inside.

Header icons moved to the gutter

We heard you loud and clear, so the new header icons are back in the gutter (the way they currently behave in Bear). This allows header text to align with the reset of the note content, and we’ll continue polishing this layout based on your feedback.

Thanks for testing Bear

We really appreciate all your help and feedback in testing Bear. In fact, this new test build was entirely a result of your feedback! Please keep it coming, and we’ll be in touch in the forum threads.

Download the App

To try all the new features go to the alpha page: https://bear.app/alpha/

[val]

Love the idea of using Panda for highly experimental features. Excited to try this release!

[diaph]

Best news ever, almost 3 years that I’m waiting for this to happen and you made it the way Bear is and why we love it, so clean and seamless. Now I seriously can’t imagine not seeing it released at one point !

The headers aligned is a nice improvement for my eyes as well.

In a more general way I’m wondering how you as a team are experiencing this public alpha experience, must be annoying sometimes to have everyone having an opinion about everything even if it’s nice, as consumer, to feel heard and be part of the process.

Thanks again for your great work.

[mattwimer]

This is wonderful! I appreciate that you’ve hidden markdown, and the way that it is done. It’s smooth and clean. I found no glitches in my playing with it. And it makes the app itself look incredibly clean. Thanks!

[jclay82]

I am absolutely IN LOVE with this solution…both the disappearing markdown and left alignment and gutter solution with headers and bullets. It makes me want to use Bear not just for scrappy notes but for everything, which improves the entire experience and value of your tagging system. I won’t be annoying and ask when this will ship, but I want to because I can’t wait to start using it.

[JaiGoyal]

Guys, the update makes Panda an even more beautiful experience. Something I didn’t think was possible. Thanks so much for the hard work you are putting in to enable a perfect user experience. In my opinion, this user experience is unparalleled. The app simply redefines what aesthetic means.
Again, thanks so much Shiny Frog,
An avid user

[SamAdams]

Everything I waited for for a long time is now reality. It’s wonderful to see how this app gets better and better and better …
You guys do a great job . Thanks for your great work and for letting the user be an active part of the development process. Can’t wait for the final release.

[Spiriah]

I just started playing around with the latest build within the last hour, and I’m absolutely in love with the ability to hide markdown artifacts. Definitely an item that’s been at the top of my wish list for a long, long time. Notes look so much cleaner this way, and I think it’ll go a long way toward increasing appeal to more casual note-takers who aren’t familiar with markdown and just want to capture a thought in a beautiful interface. Excellent work as alway, Bear team. Thanks for striving to make the best note-taking app out there.

[jay]

I agree with everyone above: this is a perfect solution. Thanks for all your work!

[graeme22]

Thank you for the markdown hiding which has been executed well. All I need now is Latex.

[jujoje]

Finally people will stop complaining about the markdown syntax

But in all seriousness this is great. TBH I’d always been happy with the markdown syntax displayed, but this had totally won me over. Really hope in makes it into the final product.

[shryn]

Such an improvement! I love being able to hide all the markdown symbols and just see the text and photos. I can’t wait for the iOS version. Well done.

[dkeiger1]

Perfect. Love it. Implementing this will make me a customer for life.

[Robio]

FYI, I just copy-pasted some text from Bear into Panda, and it lost most of its formatting. The bold is all gone (I guess because bold is two asterisks in Panda). The italics are all gone (I guess because italics are now an asterisk instead of a slash). Some (former) italics became a different font. Bullets all became just asterisks. The good news is the highlights remained highlights.

Also, I think I may have mentioned this elsewhere, but I just want to make sure that the very narrow text area (roughly half the width of the window if you make the window screen-width) is just because Panda is just the bare-bones editor, and not something Bear is planning to make permanent. I rely on being able to go screen-width and have the text be almost as wide.

[ehler]

It works well. I’d recommend having an included shortcut for it (obviously can program own shortcuts on macOS, but as you can’t on iOS, first-party shortcuts are good).

I don’t anticipate using it myself almost ever, so I’m just doing some testing of the “show markdown” behavior in the latest release. Maybe I’ll use it for showing other people notes on my machines? Not a super frequent use-case. I will be glad to stop hearing people ask for it on the subreddit and here…

[brianleejackson]

Awesome, looking great!

[ces3001]

LOVE IT!!! YES YES YES!!! Keep markdown hiding for the final release. You will have my undying love (and subscription) forever.

This and 2) Automatic TOC (Optionally in-line, but at least accessible with a menu click somewhere).

and 3) per-instance search results, as opposed to per-note in the list. See Typora.

THEN you’ll have my undying love. Meanwhile, I love you as you are!

[teogeos]

Just want to add my vote here: I LOVE the markdown hiding.

The way you chose to design this seems perfect to me: markdown hidden by default and it shows up when you click in it so you can edit it. Great

[Gene]

Wow guys. Thats the way aha aha, I like it, aha aha!