Store notes as .md or .txt?

Vinho

Hi!
In The Archive you can choose .md or .txt as the default file extension. I wonder which one is best to store my notes in. What are the differences between the two file types? So far I haven't experienced any differences – my notes look exactly the same in The Archive, no matter which of the two file types I store them in...

ctietze

It's mostly for compatibility with other apps and has no impact on The Archive's functionality. (Adding or removing supported extension has, of couse.)

.md is likely registered as the default extension with any Markdown-aware text editor you have, so if you browse your directory in Finder and invoke QuickLook with the space bar, for example, you will get a pre-rendered Markdown file kudos to whatever editor you're using.

.txt is more generic. The Archive doesn't care about which file extension you use and will try to display your stuff in Markdown. But if you store your notes as .txt, you may not get a Markdown-aware QuickLook preview in Finder but rather something that resembles TextEdit's display of text. (Unless your Markdown editor also registered itself for the .txt extension, that is!)

Vinho

Thanks, Christian. I think I'll go with .md-files then. Since they can be changed to .txt-files very easily, I guess there's no risk.

ctietze

Risk -- not at all! As long as you have access to a computer, you'll be able to bulk rename files pretty quickly.

galen

@ctietze said:
if you browse your directory in Finder and invoke QuickLook with the space bar, for example, you will get a pre-rendered Markdown file kudos to whatever editor you're using.

What QuickLook markdown plugin are you using?

ctietze

@galen I don't care much about that, so I was surprised about the results

$ qlmanage -m plugins | grep plain
  public.plain-text -> /Applications/TextMate.app/Contents/Library/QuickLook/TextMateQL.qlgenerator (1.0)

$ qlmanage -m plugins | grep markdown
  net.daringfireball.markdown -> /Applications/Texts.app/Contents/Library/QuickLook/TextsQuickLook.qlgenerator (1.0 - loaded)
  com.barebones.bbedit.markdown-source -> /Applications/Texts.app/Contents/Library/QuickLook/TextsQuickLook.qlgenerator (1.0 - loaded)

So it's Texts, and not TextMate, apparently!