ReText is an open-source, simple, yet surprisingly versatile Markdown and reStructuredText editor.
Even though it doesn’t look the part (at least when compared to the new-age Electron-based Markdown editors out there), it has a few advantages that are definitely worth taking into account.
Reasons to consider ReText as your primary Markdown editor
Besides providing support for both Markdown and reStructuredText markup languages, it also can be customized to a high degree.
Because it’s written in Python, it means that anyone with the basic programming knowledge can pretty much create custom markups using Python-specific modules.
Another advantage of being an app written with Python is that it feels like a native app. This means that it’s remarkably lightweight, and is quite fast.
Other noteworthy features for aiding your web writing sessions include a Preview panel, the ability to export projects to ODT, PDF, and HTML formats, an extendible spell checker, as well as various configuration options.
The Preferences menu provides you with various ways to edit both the app and editor’s behavior, but also the general look and feel of the app.
Above-average editor, but not without some drawbacks
In its default form, ReText is definitely a good web writing tool. However, beginner users will have to do some reading before they can actually extend the app’s functionality in any meaningful way. Thankfully, the app has a decent Wiki section on
https://github.com/retext-project/retext/wiki
Furthermore, ReText is not exactly what one might call a modern-looking app. Even though the software is not particularly old, it doesn’t offer the same “distraction-free” fell as some of its rivals (case in point, it doesn’t have a Live Preview mode, or any sort of writing modes, for that matter).
The app is also not exactly well-equipped when it comes to handling large projects, since it doesn’t provide easy ways to handle or organize documents.
Conclusion
ReText is a WYSIWIG for two important markup langauges, Markdown and reStructured Text. It’s not the most beginner-friendly editor of the sorts, and it doesn’t look the part, but it does come with a decent list of useful features, and it can be configured and extended to one’s liking.
