When comparing Textnut vs Caret, the Slant community recommends Caret for most people. In the question“What are the best Markdown editors for OS X?” Caret is ranked 25th while Textnut is ranked 26th. The most important reason people chose Caret is:
The single pane formats your MD as you write it but retains the markup so you can see what's going on.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Can automatically convert Markdown to rich text
TextNut has two modes that it can switch between on-the-fly - Markdown and rich text editing mode. In rich text editing mode Markdown syntax is automatically converted to rich text. For example, typing ***bold***
will automatically convert it to bold. In Markdown mode syntax will be kept (with chosen styling applied).
Pro Advanced yet easy way to add images
Images can be added by writing a curly brace ({
) anywhere in the text and a popup will appear that will allow dragging and dropping the image in as well as customize the parameters without having to remember the proper syntax.
Pro Effectively does WYSIWYG editing
Pro Easy document management
Drag and Drop tree structure document management, powerful and flexible.
Pro Single-pane hybrid interface
The single pane formats your MD as you write it but retains the markup so you can see what's going on.
Pro Has a heading navigator
Hit ⌘ G to see document titles in a hierarchical view, type and use the arrows to navigate.
Pro Has a file manager
Hit ⌘ T to browse current folder, navigate the file system and manage your files and folders, type to search, right click to create / move / rename / delete items.
Pro Supports multiple cursors / selections
Make ten changes at the same time, not one change ten times - lets you edit multiple lines at once, perform quick and selective find and replace, etc.
Pro Supports context commands
Hit "Enter" to fix spelling, convert list to ordered/unordered/task, convert reference link to inline, jump to reference link definition, jump to footnote definition, visit links, etc.
Pro Supports auto-completions
Auto-completion for paths of links and images, keywords in fenced code blocks, emoji, etc.
Pro Offers inline preview for LaTeX math expressions
Renders LaTeX math expressions as soon as you have finished writing them.
Pro Supports "select more" / "select less" commands
Hit ⌥ ↑ to extend the current selection to the next biggest element and ⌥ ↓ to shrink the selection.
Cons
Con Rich text editing mode has incomplete Markdown support
Some Markdown elements don't convert to rich text in rich text editing mode. For example, for emphasis only *
will convert, _
will be left as is.
Con Not free
No longer free, try and buy
Con The shortcuts don't toggle formatting
Pressing cmd+B, for example, will begin a bold segment of text, but pressing it again doesn't end that bold segment, it retroactively turns the boldness off. This interrupts writing flow tremendously.