markdown has several such solutions, online and off.
the offline apps are typically mac, the leaders being
"marked" (marked2.com) which works with any text-editor,
and "multimarkdown composer" (multimarkdown.com), which
wraps a dedicated-editor around the conversion-routine.
i will soon be introducing my own light-markup system
-- z.m.l. (zen markup language) -- and will offer apps
which are cross-platform offline, as well as web-apps,
including one with an a.p.i. that can be used by anyone.
send it a light-markup .zml file; it sends back .html.
and this is where stallman's request has gone awry...
namely, you don't need to wrap the conversion-routines
into the app, or change the interface of the app at all.
instead, simply route your light-markup plain-text file
to a converter, and show the output in a preview window.
and yes, it should be side-by-side with your editor and
show the changes in real-time as you make (or save) them.
my light-markup system differs from markdown in that it:
1) is targeted at long-form documents, such as books,
2) avoids the problems which plague markdown, 3) focuses
on lightness as an asset that _eases_editing_, rather than
as something that _fosters_readability_of_the_raw_format_
(as there's no reason to read the file in that raw format).
speaking of readability, as well as my focus on long-form,
.html is not the only output format supported by my system;
we also need .epub, .mobi, .pdf, and still-to-come formats.
the other important thing about z.m.l. is that its focus
on _books_ shines a different focus on needed functionality,
compared to that provided by generation of a mere web-page.
all this and even more, coming before thanksgiving day...
This sounds exciting! (Though I must say, I am all but married to Org at this point.)
On a different note though, I feel that Microsoft Word, and web browsers, really do a terrible job at rendering text. Kerning is often bad, there are frequent widows and orphans, pagination is often a mess, hyphenation is laughable. These are real issues and they are not solved by a different markup language.
So far, TeX and Indesign are the only software I know of that really manage to solve this problem. I would love to see a new export format that can deal with this.
Maybe what we really need is a new middle ground: A kind of LLVM for text processing. An intermidiary machine format that serves as a target for all different kinds of markup languages that can be further compiled to beautifully rendered text in whatever format you desire.
needed to clear my plate / get that off my chest...
*
if you'd be so kind as to point to either of those,
here at h.n. or elsewhere, i'd consider it an honor.
(i have never been able to get any traction here;
i guess i need to go see what the reddit kids say.)
*
i too am totally dissatisfied with web typography.
it's atrocious. but a lot of the problems you note
_can_ be corrected, such as widows, and pagination,
if you adopt a mindset that considers it important.
and i won't stop until i've created e-books that
are _both_ highly functional _and_ very beautiful.
anyway, thanks again.
-bowerbird
p.s. but i don't think we even need hyphenation now.
without performance problems.
markdown has several such solutions, online and off. the offline apps are typically mac, the leaders being "marked" (marked2.com) which works with any text-editor, and "multimarkdown composer" (multimarkdown.com), which wraps a dedicated-editor around the conversion-routine.
i will soon be introducing my own light-markup system -- z.m.l. (zen markup language) -- and will offer apps which are cross-platform offline, as well as web-apps, including one with an a.p.i. that can be used by anyone. send it a light-markup .zml file; it sends back .html.
for a similar online solution for markdown, see here: http://markdownrules.com
and this is where stallman's request has gone awry...
namely, you don't need to wrap the conversion-routines into the app, or change the interface of the app at all.
instead, simply route your light-markup plain-text file to a converter, and show the output in a preview window. and yes, it should be side-by-side with your editor and show the changes in real-time as you make (or save) them.
my light-markup system differs from markdown in that it: 1) is targeted at long-form documents, such as books, 2) avoids the problems which plague markdown, 3) focuses on lightness as an asset that _eases_editing_, rather than as something that _fosters_readability_of_the_raw_format_ (as there's no reason to read the file in that raw format).
speaking of readability, as well as my focus on long-form, .html is not the only output format supported by my system; we also need .epub, .mobi, .pdf, and still-to-come formats.
the other important thing about z.m.l. is that its focus on _books_ shines a different focus on needed functionality, compared to that provided by generation of a mere web-page.
all this and even more, coming before thanksgiving day...
-bowerbird