markwhen - remark.ing

Social media with text files - like twitter but by writing markwhen. Learn more.

markwhen/markwhen.mw

Reminders & commands

Hello! A couple updates from the past month and preview of things being worked on:

markwhen/markwhen.mw

Blogging with markwhen, the return of pages, and more

I have been working on making markwhen and markwhen.com more of a utility that I can use daily, such that I find its flaws more easily and can make stuff for it that I want as a user. Admittedly I don't make that many timelines but I have found that it is very useful for journaling and blogging. In fact if you're reading this post on re.markwhen.com , it was written it markwhen! How cool is that.

Pages (tabs) are back on markwhen.com , and represent completely separate files. You can have tabs open for browser documents, files on your computer, and cloud markwhen documents all at the same time.

markwhen/markwhen.mw

I have published a markwhen cli that you can use to generate markwhen views (single html files) from the command line 🤯.

markwhen/markwhen.mw

Behind the scenes work

I've been working on some more behind-the-scenes stuff with markwhen, which I both like and dislike doing: dislike because it doesn't have any immediate value for users, like because it enables more value for users long-term.

I have been separating the views (timeline/map/calendar) from the editor. At this point, every view is its own standalone application that communicates with the editor via a standard API.

I'm working on [opening up this API](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@markwhen/view-client ) and adding documentation so that others might be able to make their own views.

markwhen/markwhen.mw

Gantt view & autocomplete

"But Rob, I though there was already a gantt view?"

Yes, but this view is even ganttier.

In the new gantt view, event and section titles are stuck to the side, so that they are always visible when scrolling and panning.

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Maps are back, nesting groups, and markdown-style images

First, the map view is back. Use it to plot out events that have locations associated with them, like so:

`2023: Year in Germany

markwhen/markwhen.mw

VS Code Extension update

The visual studio code extension has been updated with a few features:

Updated UI to match markwhen.com

This includes shortcuts like j for jumping, l for toggling light/dark mode, z for internal sidebar, etc.

markwhen/markwhen.mw

J is for Jump, and other updates

I wanted to go over two and a half updates that I have not yet written about in the new UI: jumping, autosave, and collaborative editing.

Jumping

Autosave

markwhen/markwhen.mw

And we're back!

First off, sorry for the long lull between updates. I recently moved, had covid, and got my finger infected all in the past month. But all that should be behind us now; update cadence should improve.

Frontend update

I promoted the beta to be the main website today. If you are experiencing bugs or things aren't working as expected, the old interface will continue to be accessible from old.markwhen.com .

markwhen/markwhen.mw

Work is ongoing for a new foundation for markwhen, that will be the new basis for the website and allow markwhen to be integrated into other editors, notably initially VS Code. Aside from supporting other editors, the new version is an upgrade from vue 2 to vue 3 and will have better mobile support, among other things.

You can try it here.

markwhen/markwhen.mw

VS Code extension

The initial release of the Markwhen VS code extension is out, you can find it here .

To switch between the text editor and the timeline view, select View: Reopen editor with... from the command palette and choose Text Editor.

markwhen/markwhen.mw

Weekdays, due dates, and checkboxes

Support has been added to use weekdays when leveraging relative dates.

markwhen/markwhen.mw

Import & Export

You can now import and export markwhen files from markwhen.com .

Use the file menu to open from another site or markwhen page, or from a file, and use the export file menu to export to a .mw file.

markwhen/markwhen.mw

More casual dates and times

Markwhen now supports more casual dates like Jan 5 2022, 4 December 1991, or June 4 2021 4pm. These can be used both as start and end times; all of the following are valid:

\Jun 4 8am - 9pm: All day event

\May 5 - July 12: Spring to early summer

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Pages and drag & drop

You can now edit event start and end dates from the timeline instead of doing it in text. Changes will be reflected back to the text.

markwhen/markwhen.mw

Light mode and sections

First off, light mode can be toggled from the sidebar:

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Relative Dates and Percents

You can now create events using relative dates like "3 days" or "6 weeks" or "2 minutes 3 seconds." Refer to previous events or calculate durations without needing to look at a calendar.