[OSX] EVND - Atom Editor Plugin for Evernote (Markdown, LaTeX Math equations, themes, etc.)

[frogwell 17]

The package:  EVND (Ever Notedown)
 

So this is a plugin for Atom Editor by Github that acts like an alternate editor for the Evernote Mac Client. Basically it extends Atom's Markdown editing capacities with features like LaTeX/MathJax equation editing, TOC, footnotes, image insertion via pasting, etc. And it communicates with the Evernote Mac Client via AppleScript so it can do things like creating/updating notes (as rendered HTML), import notes from Evernote and convert to Markdown formats, etc.

 

I initially wrote this for my own use, and over the course of about a year, it has become increasingly…complicated. And I’m guessing that other people might find some use with this, so I thought I’d share. (And if there are developers out there interested in this project, that wuold be great -- it's open source under MIT license). I’ve been using EVND to write my notes, but I don’t have the time or means to do more serious tests, hence I can only say the status is “Works For Me”.

 

Since it uses AppleScript, so obviously it's OSX only. But as Evernote has similar scriptibility for OSX and Windows, so it should be very easy to extend it to support Windows, if there are developers out there interested in doing so.

 

 

• Demo 1 (Overview, creating notes from Atom/EVND and send to Evernote): http://i.imgur.com/fPmoN2F.gifv
• Demo 2 (Text formating with shortcut keys - bold, italics, highlight, underline, etc.): http://i.imgur.com/6FLTdjh.gif
• Demo 3 (Update note content, tags, etc. and push the changes to Evernote): http://i.imgur.com/zN5Ey8P.gif
• Demo 4 (Create note in Evernote, import to Atom/EVND with notelink and convert the content to Markdown, featuring lists, functioning Checkboxes, etc.): http://i.imgur.com/g6bZzN0.gif
• Demo 5 (Create note in Evenote, search in Atom/EVND with query string and import the target note and convert to Markdown, featuring image attachments): http://i.imgur.com/PbUf1Ss.gif
• Demo 6 (For a EVND & Evernote syncd note, annotate the image attachments in Evernote, and sync the changes back to EVND): http://i.imgur.com/nQVkv4H.gif
• More to come...

More demos (as gif animation):  http://imgur.com/a/UCVGi

 

Some features:

• OS X only (See Installation and Status section for more info)
• Local note editing: This plugin works by communicating with the Evernote OSX Client via AppleScript, so all the work is done on your local machine, no authorization required.
• 2-way editing (…ish): (1) Edit notes in EVND or in Evernote, and sync changes… to some extend; (2) Import notes from Evernote and convert to Markdown format.
• Evenote meta info: notebook and tags
• Images and Attachments: (1) Pasting, drag-and-drop, markdown syntax, etc.; (2) 2-way sync (get changes/annotations made in Evernote)
• Functioning TOC (table of contents) and footnotes: Clickable links even in Evernote client!
• LaTeX Mathematical Expressions with MathJax (and user-defined Macros)
• Icon fonts and emojis
• All the regular Github-Flavored-Markdown features (links, lists, tables, etc.)
• Quick notes from selected text: code snippets, etc.
• Configurable themes for markdown rendering: Several markdown rendering themes are available to choose, you can also edit the stylesheets yourself.
• Auto backup and version control (with GIT)
• Sort & search notes
• Export well-formated HTMLs
• Enhanced Markdown editing experience in Atom
  • Supports inline-HTML syntax highlighting
  • Syncronized scrolling and tab switching of editor and preview panel
  • Shortcut keys for formatting text (bold, italics, udnerline, highlights, blockquotes, etc.)

 

Please read this shared Evernote note for more info (it's best viewed in the Evernote Mac Client, you can use "Save to Evernote").

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

@frogwell:

 

Wow!  I see you've been very busy!  Many thanks for sharing.

 

This sounds like an incredible, extensive enhancement for EN Mac.

 

Honestly, I don't know why you are sharing for free such a rich product.  I would think you would have no problem selling this for a small price.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Please read this shared Evernote note for more info (it's best viewed in the Evernote Mac Client, you can use "Save to Evernote").

 

Thanks for an excellent intro/help document.

[frogwell 17]

 

@frogwell:

 

Wow!  I see you've been very busy!  Many thanks for sharing.

 

This sounds like an incredible, extensive enhancement for EN Mac.

 

Honestly, I don't know why you are sharing for free such a rich product.  I would think you would have no problem selling this for a small price.

 

I guess the short answer is I don't have time or motivation to seriously invest in developing a commercial product. And EVND at this moment is very, very far from mature. It works fine for me, because when an error pops up I as the author could easily figure out what happened and what to do, but to make it work for general users would be a totally different story (for now I don't even know how to explain the installation/set up process to users who doesn't know about GIT). It started as a very simple extension to the official Atom Markdown Preview package that sends rendered HTML to Evernote as a new note, then I thought I would like to have this and that, so I added one thing after another... but I've never meant for it to be a serious commercial product. Add that to the facts that Atom Editor itself being open source, and that I've borrowed code from other open source projects, etc., I can only see EVND being open source.

[John Christopher Jones 29]

Just because it's open source or free software doesn't mean it can't be commercial. That only means that you have to make the source code available to anyone who asks. If nothing else, you could stick a donation button in a Github readme).

By the way, this is pretty awesome. I've been using the Evernote for Sublime Text package and I've been debating putting in the time to try porting it to Atom. You appear to have gone even further on features than my favorite Sublime Text package in many ways.

[Andy Stanton 1]

Just signing in to pass on my thanks @frogwell. This is exceptional.

[frogwell 17]

Just because it's open source or free software doesn't mean it can't be commercial. That only means that you have to make the source code available to anyone who asks. If nothing else, you could stick a donation button in a Github readme).

By the way, this is pretty awesome. I've been using the Evernote for Sublime Text package and I've been debating putting in the time to try porting it to Atom. You appear to have gone even further on features than my favorite Sublime Text package in many ways.

I'm just a bit wary about the implied responsibility and moral burden that come with money , because I cannot make any promise about committing to the project. And so far the plugin has only 158 downloads anyway... But I'm glad if you find it interesting.

 

Yeah I learned about the sublime package a few months back when I had written a barely functioning version of EVND. I tried it and found it to be pretty cool, but not quite what I want. For a few reasons:

1. No MathJax. This is very, very high on my priority list. MacDown and StackEdit don't sync to Evernote, and Marxico doesn't support macros, etc. MathJax was the main reason that I decided I'd write my own thing in the first place.

2. Authentication. Since I do use the official Evernote mac client, the "developer token" implementation is a bit counter-intuitive to me. I've decided early on the idea of taking advantage of applescript, and I want everything to be done locally without going through web authorization, etc., hence the implementation of EVND would differ from that of Evernote for Sublime Text from a relatively low level.

3. Forced two-way syncing. I felt it would be hard to add support for various themes and ensure consistent one-way syncing (Atom->Evernote) based on how Evernote for Sublime Text works in general. Especially when MathJax is involved.

4. Atom being based on web technologies. Therefore writing an Atom package is quite different from writing one for Sublime Text. On one hand, Atom is very cool when it comes to markdown, html, css, javascript, etc. But on the other hand, it's not as nearly as fast as Sublime Text, or TextMate or VIM for that matter. As for Sublime Text... I don't think it would be easy to have features such as split preview, synchronized scrolling, etc. which are almost essential in most markdown editors.

 

Basically these are the reasons that I gave up on the idea of porting Evernote for Sublime Text...

 

 

 

Just signing in to pass on my thanks @frogwell. This is exceptional.

I'm glad that you like it :-)

[Br4nd0n 6]

frogwell,

This is genius!

I love it.

Quick question: How/Where do you define your default notebook?

Thanks for the huge contribution to the Evernote and Atom community.

 

[MosesMoses 7]

@frogwell, 

I would like to thank you!!! for EVND, at this point it is part of my everyday research, writing workflow. I Tweaked one of your custom themes to bring it close to this http://verifyandrepair.com/02-08-2015/theming-evernote/, which I use to theme Evernote, works very well. Used your suggestion of an EVND notes folder, I liked your date organisation and switched to this EVND folder structure for tracking my projects and use the folders for my Pandoc builds when publishing from Markdown files that are synced to Evernote via EVND.

I directed the Alfred Capture workflow, http://www.alfredforum.com/topic/4167-workflow-to-capture-thoughts-and-ideas-to-a-text-file-without-disrupting-your-flow/, to a markdown note in the EVND folder structure and now have my Captures synced into an Evernote note.  

You need to set up a donation button for your work.  

Best,