Beauty: a Markdown editor for Mac, iPhone and the browser, built in ten months

After about ten months of work, developer Thiago Peres has released Beauty, a Markdown editor for the Mac, the iPhone and the browser. He presented it in a Show HN post on 27 September and described it as a local editor where the page looks finished while you type.

Markdown that resolves in place

Beauty renders Markdown as it is written instead of splitting the window between source and preview. Headings, bold, italics, links, quotes and task lists appear the moment the closing mark is typed, while the file underneath stays ordinary Markdown. Table rows and columns can be dragged without lining up pipe characters, formulas are typeset by KaTeX, and a fence marked mermaid is drawn as a flowchart or sequence diagram. Code blocks are highlighted for 26 languages, from TypeScript to Rust.

Typography as the main feature

A large part of the work went into how the page feels. Four typefaces (Literata, Source Sans 3, IBM Plex Mono, Nunito) combine with four density presets, and the measure is kept between 56 and 65 characters, the range the developer considers easiest to read. Search runs on the device across note titles and text, including common word variations, and every note keeps up to 200 versions that can be previewed and restored.

Plain files, live sharing, one paid extra

On the Mac the library is an ordinary folder of .md files in ~/Beauty, with images stored beside the notes, and export covers Markdown, HTML, PDF or the whole library as a zip. Opening a shared link starts a live session whose edits travel directly between devices over WebRTC; the server that connects them sees only a random room id. The editor, local files and collaboration are free. An optional subscription, Beauty Maximus, keeps one library current across Apple devices through the user's own iCloud Drive, with no Beauty account and no Beauty server in between. The browser version needs no account either and keeps notes in encrypted storage on that device.

Most of the roughly 1,000 commits went into the editor itself. It is built on contenteditable, but the browser is never allowed to restructure the document, which Peres calls far more work than he expected. The techniques that keep it fast on three platforms will be open-sourced later. The Show HN thread brought praise for the interface and questions about the revenue model; the author answered that the project is a creative outlet rather than a business.