Last Updated on May 22, 2022
This is a new series of reviews highlighting best-of-breed utilities. We’re covering a wide range of utilities including tools that boost your productivity, help you manage your workflow, and lots more besides. For this article, we’ll put Abricotine under the spotlight.
Abricotine is an open source, cross-platform Markdown editor built for the desktop with inline preview functionality. Let’s recap about Markdown.
Markdown is a plain text formatting syntax created by John Gruber in 2004. It’s designed to be easy-to-read and easy-to-write.
Readability is at the very heart of Markdown. It offers the advantages of plain text, provides a convenient format for writing for the web, but it’s not intended to be a replacement for HTML. Markdown is a writing format, not a publishing format. You control the display of the document; formatting words as bold or italic, adding images, and creating lists are just a few of the things we can do with Markdown. Mostly, Markdown is just regular text with a few non-alphabetic characters included, such as # or *.
Markdown has a much more basic syntax than HTML, leaving aside things like opening and closing tags, and instead uses punctuation and characters that all users will already use in daily writing. The punctuation characters have been carefully chosen to resemble what they mean. The intention is to ensure that the syntax does not stop the flow of writing, allowing the author to focus on content, rather than how it looks. In this way, Markdown shares a common bond with LaTeX, a document preparation system for high quality typesetting, which also encourages authors not to focus too much on the appearance, but to concentrate on the right content.
Installation
The developer provides 32-bit and 64-bit packages for Debian / Ubuntu. There’s also binaries available for Mac OS X and Windows operating systems. If you’re like me, you’ll prefer compiling the source code for yourself.
Clone the project’s repository with the command:
$ git clone https://github.com/brrd/Abricotine.git
Navigate to the newly created directory and use npm to install the software. npm is a package manager for the JavaScript programming language. It’s the default package manager for the JavaScript runtime environment Node.js.
$ cd Abricotine/
$ sudo npm install
Now we’re ready to rumble.
Next page: Page 2 – In Operation
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction / Installation
Page 2 – In Operation
Page 3 – Other Features
Page 4 – Summary
Complete list of articles in this series:
| Excellent Utilities | |
|---|---|
| AES Crypt | Encrypt files using the Advanced Encryption Standard |
| Ananicy | Shell daemon created to manage processes’ IO and CPU priorities |
| broot | Next gen tree explorer and customizable launcher |
| Cerebro | Fast application launcher |
| cheat.sh | Community driven unified cheat sheet |
| CopyQ | Advanced clipboard manager |
| croc | Securely transfer files and folders from the command-line |
| Deskreen | Live streaming your desktop to a web browser |
| duf | Disk usage utility with more polished presentation than the classic df |
| eza | A turbo-charged alternative to the venerable ls command |
| Extension Manager | Browse, install and manage GNOME Shell Extensions |
| fd | Wonderful alternative to the venerable find |
| fkill | Kill processes quick and easy |
| fontpreview | Quickly search and preview fonts |
| horcrux | File splitter with encryption and redundancy |
| Kooha | Simple screen recorder |
| KOReader | Document viewer for a wide variety of file formats |
| Imagine | A simple yet effective image optimization tool |
| LanguageTool | Style and grammar checker for 30+ languages |
| Liquid Prompt | Adaptive prompt for Bash & Zsh |
| lnav | Advanced log file viewer for the small-scale; great for troubleshooting |
| lsd | Like exa, lsd is a turbo-charged alternative to ls |
| Mark Text | Simple and elegant Markdown editor |
| McFly | Navigate through your bash shell history |
| mdless | Formatted and highlighted view of Markdown files |
| navi | Interactive cheatsheet tool |
| noti | Monitors a command or process and triggers a notification |
| Nushell | Flexible cross-platform shell with a modern feel |
| nvitop | GPU process management for NVIDIA graphics cards |
| OCRmyPDF | Add OCR text layer to scanned PDFs |
| Oh My Zsh | Framework to manage your Zsh configuration |
| Paperwork | Designed to simplify the management of your paperwork |
| pastel | Generate, analyze, convert and manipulate colors |
| PDF Mix Tool | Perform common editing operations on PDF files |
| peco | Simple interactive filtering tool that's remarkably useful |
| ripgrep | Recursively search directories for a regex pattern |
| Rnote | Sketch and take handwritten notes |
| scrcpy | Display and control Android devices |
| Sticky | Simulates the traditional “sticky note” style stationery on your desktop |
| tldr | Simplified and community-driven man pages |
| tmux | A terminal multiplexer that offers a massive boost to your workflow |
| Tusk | An unofficial Evernote client with bags of potential |
| Ulauncher | Sublime application launcher |
| Watson | Track the time spent on projects |
| Whoogle Search | Self-hosted and privacy-focused metasearch engine |
| Zellij | Terminal workspace with batteries included |
The developer of Abricotine has announced that his program is now discontinued, and doesn’t recommend anyone fork the code.
You mention that the app is installed using npm — but how does one launch the app? Is it installed as a regular GNU/Linux app on the system, or…?
Yes, it’s run like any app, from the terminal or in a desktop environment from the menu.
Do we really need to use another markdown editor with electron-based app? I’ve already see 4 electron-based markdown editor article in just two weeks. Seriously folks… why do we need a full-fledged google chome web-browser only to use a markdown editor? Isn’t it better just to install the markdown plugin from Chrome Web Store ?
I really don’t get the electron-based developer mindset. It really beyond my comprehension.
Complaints like jole’s are rarely justified. He might not need *another* Markdown editor, but that’s irrelevant.
Markdown is very popular for documentation, so it’s not surprising there’s many Markdown editors available. In the same way, there’s 900+ Linux distributions. Critics will cite duplication of effort. Of course, there’s some, but again that’s largely irrelevant. Each Markdown editor offers different functionality, uses different toolkits etc. With more choice, there’s more likely something that meets the specific needs of an individual. And Abricotine is a very good editor with great inline preview.
Should anyone be criticized for developing open source software? It’s a great way of learning to code, collaborate with others, learn how to lead a project, etc etc.
Why should we be restricted to using a plugin for Chrome? A big proportion of users don’t even use Chrome / Chromium.
“Complaints like jole’s are rarely justified. He might not need *another* Markdown editor, but that’s irrelevant.”
I complaint about using Electron as a the base of the application. Not about creating another yet Markdown Editor. Please re-read my comment.
“Why should we be restricted to using a plugin for Chrome? A big proportion of users don’t even use Chrome / Chromium.”
You’re already contradict yourself here. Don’t you know that Electron is based on Chrome? So the Abricotine is using Electron internally, and then eventually the user is restricted with Chrome. And didn’t you know that Electron is also using Node.js which is a full framework for web server development? Do we need a Web Browser + Web Server only to use a markdown editor?
Thanks for clarifying your opening ambiguous statement.
I made no contradiction. I’m fully aware Electron uses Chromium and Node.js, save your patronizing diatribe for someone else. I’ve been a developer for 30 years.
The point you failed to grasp is that recommending a Chrome plugin restricts the end user by forcing him/her to use a specific web browser, one that is proprietary (did you know Chrome is mostly based on Chromium, which is open source? — see I can be patronizing too 🙂
And you’re NOT running a web browser / web server with Abricotine.
And Abricotine’s RAM requirements are modest, nothing like the much bigger RAM dollop required by Chrome or Chromium.
Sorry to expose your fallacies.