A standalone application that renders and displays Markdown files. It does nothing else! No direct editing nor any fancy note taking features. It is not distributed as a browser extension nor does it fire up a web server - so no web browser is needed to see the rendered Markdown file.
It renders many additional features from the markdown-it demo.
Following plugins are supported:
markdown-it-abbrmarkdown-it-containermarkdown-it-emojimarkdown-it-footnotemarkdown-it-headinganchormarkdown-it-markmarkdown-it-katexmarkdown-it-submarkdown-it-sup
You find the latest binaries and setup file at GitHub. For Windows, there is an installer package and a ZIP archive. For Linux, there is an AppImage package.
The Windows setup file supports following parameters:
/Sruns the setup silently, i.e. in the background, without UI and without asking any questions./D=C:\path\to\installsets the installation directory. This parameter has to be the last one. The path must not contain quotes, even if the path contains whitespaces.
Issues occurred with browser download security features and Windows SmartScreen. I checked both, the Windows Setup-EXE and the ZIP file in VirusTotal and no engine detected anything at upload time.
I don't know yet, how to prevent these blockings without paying an annual fee.
The application may have a delay at startup. This delay may be caused by Windows Defender. See my comment in Electron issue #29868 and this StackOverflow question. Other virus scanner may also cause a delay.
As a workaround to remove this delay, you can add the path to the mdview.exe to the exclusion list of your virus scanner. The default installation path of the setup file are:
C:\Program Files\mdviewfor system wide installation%appdata%\..\Local\Programs\mdviewfor installation in the user account (non elevated)
You may encounter some issue when trying to build the Electron distribution (binaries) i.e. the build may (partially) fail.
A possible fix is described here not able to build installer/uninstaller (ERR_ELECTRON_BUILDER_CANNOT_EXECUTE)
The tool is developed and tested only under Windows (7 and newer) 64 Bit yet.
Node.js including the NPM package manager is needed. If your Node.js version is too old, the unit tests and some other scripts may fail because of syntax errors. On a Linux machine you can use NVM to install the latest LTS version.
After cloning the Git repository, type npm install. NPM may put some warnings while installing the packages.
To start an instance while development, type npm start.
Binaries can be built by typing npm run dist. Under Windows, a ZIP package and a Setup.exe will be built. Under Linux, an AppImage file will be generated - though it is not tested by the author yet. MacOS is not tested yet and there are properly some settings missing to build the proper packages. Pull requests are welcome!
The icon is made with help of Inkscape and ImageMagick. While the application icon does not look too bad, a proper icon for Markdown documents is missing yet.
Note: you may encounter some issue when trying to build the Electron distribution i.e. the build may (partially) fail. A possible fix is described here not able to build installer/uninstaller (ERR_ELECTRON_BUILDER_CANNOT_EXECUTE)
The main process can be debugged with Visual Studio Code. A launch.json is in the repository.
The renderer process (index.html and index.js) must be debugged with help of the Electron development tools by calling in the main menu "Tools" -> "Developer tools" or by pressing the F10 key.
See section Startup speed above. If you observe a big delay at application startup, you should add the development path of the application to your virus scanner exclusion list. This workaround may also help with other Electron applications.
This tool is made by Christian Dreier. If you find a copy somewhere, you find the original at GitHub.
You can use and copy this tool under the conditions of the MIT license.
There is a fork of this project by Loïs Bégué.