Markdown, iOS, and Nebulous Notes

Markdown, iOS, and Nebulous Notes

Markdown and iOS are my tools of choice for writing away from my desk. The only hangup is writing Markdown links with the iOS keyboard. Since the square brackets [ ] are used, and hidden away on the third level keyboard… It’s a bit of a hassle. Fortunately, at least one iOS text Dropbox-syncing text editor, Nebulous Notes, has an easy solution.

• Open Nebulous Notes
• Touch the settings icon
• Add Macro
• Paste the following in the top box:

    [$sel]
 
    [$sel]: $paste

• Name it what you like. I chose “MD Link”.

Now you’re ready to make some Markdown reference links on the fly.

• Copy the URL to the clipboard.
• Open up Nebulous Notes
• Select the anchor text for your link
• Touch the MD Link button.
• Go take a nap; you’re all done.

Nerdery behind the scenes

So here’s what Nebulous Notes is doing. It takes the selected text ($sel) and wraps it in markdown brackets. Then it copies that wrapped anchor text and puts it on a new line. It adds a colon, space, and then pastes ($paste) the contents of the clipboard. Voilà, a properly formatted Markdown reference link without hunting for the square brackets.

Why reference links

Inline links are (arguably) ever so slightly easier to write. However, reference links make your markdown document infinitely easier to read. It’s worth the tiny bit of additional effort to use reference links when it comes to actually reading the words that you wrote.