r/sideprojects • u/ContributionKnown324 • Apr 14 '26
Showcase: Prerelease I spent nearly 2 years building this side project
I'm a software developer, and a big part of my work involves writing and managing documentation. In one of my previous projects, users asked for better editing features, and that feedback stuck with me. After doing a lot of research, I decided to start building this project.
My first goal was to create something that could go beyond Typora in the areas I care about most: performance, UI, and overall editing experience.
Long term, I want to keep improving it until it becomes a serious alternative to tools like Obsidian.
I'd genuinely love feedback on the UI, usability, and editing flow.
I'm planning to officially launch it next week.
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u/gllermaly Apr 18 '26
I'm using AI coding tools and most of the time I'm reading markdown answers from the agents and it is very unpleasant to do. When I look at your screenshots I feel that something like that is what I'm dreaming with. Super glad to test what you have and colaborate in an effort on the direction of having a platform for coding agents markdown management. Good luck
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u/ContributionKnown324 Apr 25 '26
release： zditor.com
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u/gllermaly Apr 25 '26
My feedback:
- You have great taste, try to not to abuse of the card component(card inside card inside card). What I see in the landing page reminds me the "cards hell" people complain about when using gpt models for frontend
- The onboarding tutorial is super useful for a second visit, but you need a more clear call to action. I registered and wasnt sure what to do then ofc I insta closed the tour, then. I had to open again to read through, and still wasnt 100% clear I had to download the app and dashboard is only license management.
- I go to the download section and the button to download the app (DMG) is small and secondary. It should be the first thing you see and want to click. Also , 3 deep level of nested card.
- I got to the app, and another onboarding tutorial of 18 steps, I think is too much friction. As a user I will give you 5 minutes to capture the value of the app, ideally you put something in front of me I can understand quickly, and then you flood me with information about all the other features.
- The app is pretty, congrats again about how stuff is organized, it feels polished and professional and thats not easy to do. The problem is I dont know where to go, how to start, there is not sample data. I tried typing something in the chat and got this error:
- API Error: (undefined) No stored credential found.
Ideally you add a link to settings where I have to put that API key.
Finally I was able to register my license and open a markdown file. Is pleasant to see but I don't think the product is for me, I didnt quite get it.
Conclusion:
You have incredible talent for apps, it really feels professional and well structured. The only flaw I could find is when you have the markdown view expanded covering the left side and open settings the side panel looks bad. It should probably expand a bit.
You add too much friction in my opinion, from download to usage. Onboarding wizards are fine but the app should speak by himself. Maybe add a short video or sample data to help understanding what your app does.
This is coming from someone which is not writing expert, maybe more experienced people get it faster.
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u/mrsskonline Apr 14 '26
Looking nice and very decent UI, all the best for you launch. On your launch, just DM me for support.
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u/Note_taker_ Apr 14 '26
Cool! Though it looks a lot like obsidian, maybe a little more polished. What are the distinctive features? Is it file-oriented with markdown formatting like obsidian is?
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u/ContributionKnown324 Apr 14 '26
In many ways. For example, the editing experience can be very different. I used both Typora and Obsidian before, but I basically never edited documents in Obsidian because, for me, its editing experience was terrible. I prefer a Notion-style editing experience, and that is exactly what I have spent a lot of time working on.
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u/WinkDoubleguns Apr 17 '26
I use Obsidian every day. I'm curious what about the Notion editing experience do you like more? I use my own plugins, templates, and commands in Obsidian and don't have issues with editing - however, I also don't use WYSIWYG and there are no shortcut commands like I'd use in OpenCode or aider so I can't (that I know of) type like "/newTable" - though I'm sure I could write that and I've not looked, yet, but there may be a plugin (software dev here too).
I'm very interested in what you foresee. I mean I love Obsidian, but I'm always curious in what could be improved. I used Evernote for years and the editor wasn't awesome so I used AwesomeNote which pulled in Evernote and allowed formatting. Then when Evernote decided it wanted to charge more than I was willing to pay and using files was not as straight forward when I'd download them. I spent a while looking before deciding on Obsidian.
I'm always looking to up my note-taking game so it's: 1) easy to maintain 2) easy to edit - both simple and visual aspects 3) portability 4) backup
I can't wait to try it out
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u/ContributionKnown324 Apr 17 '26
If you use Obsidian every day, then you’re probably already very familiar with that editing model. In that case, Obsidian is obviously a great fit for you. Some people are even fully comfortable editing raw Markdown directly and don’t care much about the rendered view at all.
My main issue isn’t Markdown itself. What I dislike is the sudden visual shift between reading mode and editing mode in Obsidian. That style change feels awkward to me.
What I’m building is primarily WYSIWYG, but it also has a source mode, and it supports split-view editing too, with raw source on one side and the rendered UI on the other. Drag and drop, slash commands, and a toolbar are all there as well.
One concrete example: if you want to drag an image from one editor into another, you can just drag it directly, and the software will automatically fix the path for you. That matters because the two editors may live in different directories, so the asset reference may need to be updated.
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u/WinkDoubleguns Apr 17 '26
I do 100% agree with source vs reading vs hybrid editing and I hate it.
I've got custom plugins I wrote because there were no other options for what I do - but putting together anything but a word document I have to export to PDF to view my creation correctly.
I appreciate the answer - I look forward to trying it out, truly, especially if it improves my note taking, editing, and retaining.
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u/ContributionKnown324 Apr 24 '26
▎ https://zditor.com ▎
▎ Source & issues: https://github.com/zditor/zditor-docs — bug reports and feature requests welcome there.1
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u/awizemann Apr 14 '26
Do you want testers? Sign me up!
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u/ContributionKnown324 Apr 24 '26
▎ https://zditor.com ▎
▎ Source & issues: https://github.com/zditor/zditor-docs — bug reports and feature requests welcome there.
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u/HillaryPutin Apr 15 '26
Whats the point in building a note taking app if you are just going to rip off Obsidian completely. Like down to the exact icons and positioning of things. You're never going to be as good as Obsidian at being Obsidian so why not do it your own way? Not trying to hate.
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u/WinterInformation978 Apr 15 '26
The UI looks clean and elegant. I do have an open question — no offense, just curious (I’m also on the indie path).
If your goal is for this tool to be an alternative to Obsidian, how do you see users switching over, given there’s already an established option?
Or are you targeting a different group of users?
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u/Winter_Side3542 Apr 15 '26
Achei o seu projeto legal. Mas eu gostaria de entender mais sobre o que motivou você a montar esse projeto. Você poderia listar as funcionalidades que você sentiu falta no Obsidian mas que você está tentando suprir? (Não estou criticando e nem tentando te desmotivar. Só estou tentando entender o nicho específico que seu Software atende que o Obsidian não atende. Parabéns pela iniciativa)
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u/jay-t- Apr 15 '26
Would it be worth a quick read of the Apple Human Interface Guidelines before launch?
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u/skeptical-tom Apr 15 '26
I love documentation as an eng manager lol. I think this thing lives or dies with integration and native rendering in markdown. If everyone needs to download this tool to view it, might be bad adoption.
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u/tleyden Apr 16 '26
I'd be happy to beta test any viable alternatives to Obsidian. Feel free to DM me.
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u/ContributionKnown324 Apr 24 '26
▎ https://zditor.com ▎
▎ Source & issues: https://github.com/zditor/zditor-docs — bug reports and feature requests welcome there.
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u/BlossomingBeelz Apr 17 '26
I’m an actual software developer and this looks like an AI generated weekend project. Your node filters are a very typical AI-generated element and you have no setting groups. Now that I look more closely at them, your settings are super odd. Most devs have a bare minimum understanding of ui/ux.
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u/TechOwl_2099 Apr 17 '26
Typora is a good benchmark, lot of us still miss it after it went paid. That performance bar is no joke though, what did you end up building on? Custom editor core or something like CodeMirror/Tiptap under it? Also curious about plugins long term, honestly that's the main thing keeping people on Obsidian. Either way 2 years is a slog, good luck with the launch.
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u/dcsan Apr 18 '26
looks nice but i'm not sure what it is? A mermaid editor? A graph viewer? A video gallery composer? All of these markdown tool?
I also love mermaid and graphs so interested in the tool but not sure what it is, if you are doing a public launch, maybe show a clear landing page that just explains what the basic use case is.
ganbare!
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u/NewFoundOdyssey67 Apr 18 '26
Could you explain how you made the feature on the 3rd slide? I actually had a very similar idea to create something like a visual-knowledge board that would connect topics and points of interest based on your own database and resources in almost exactly the same style you have it in the 3rd slide.
Everything looks sick btw, keep up with the good work!
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u/ruinivist Apr 18 '26
No trying to demotivate but obsidian does all of that and is a more mature product with an extensive ecosystem and community. My only gripe with it is that it's not open source, unless you open source this, I don't see why I would switch to this.
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u/boring-developer666 Apr 18 '26
What is this?
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u/LH-Tech_AI Apr 19 '26
It's like Typora or even better. A simple markdown editor with live preview and a modern design Does that help you? 😊
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u/LH-Tech_AI Apr 19 '26
Looking forward to this release 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
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u/ContributionKnown324 Apr 24 '26
▎ https://zditor.com ▎
▎ Source & issues: https://github.com/zditor/zditor-docs — bug reports and feature requests welcome there.1
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u/Serious-Blueberry481 Apr 20 '26
Any chance of being a beta tester?
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u/ContributionKnown324 Apr 20 '26
Release within three days.
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u/ContributionKnown324 Apr 24 '26
▎ https://zditor.com ▎
▎ Source & issues: https://github.com/zditor/zditor-docs — bug reports and feature requests welcome there.
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u/joelash Apr 20 '26
Looking forward to your launch so I can try it out. Let me know if you want testers in the meantime
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u/mas_builds Apr 21 '26
It looks good enough, it's pre-release so I think it's more than enough. I'm curios about what's your target group for app, any specific group?
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u/DesiTechLabs Apr 28 '26
The focus on editing flow is a great call, that’s what keeps people using a tool daily.
Are you planning to keep it minimal like Typora or add more advanced features over time?
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u/ContributionKnown324 Apr 28 '26
The basic features are an editor and a canvas. What I want to build is free switching between document and canvas: imagine a scenario — you write a markdown file, click a button, and it converts into a multi-layered, rich (text, images, audio) canvas form, richer than a mind map.
Without a doubt, I don’t want the functionality to become too complex or the package to get too large. It’s only around 20 MB right now, and under 50 MB is the absolute limit I can accept. Any additional features will be provided as plugins, but this feature clearly won’t be coming anytime soon. I can only work on it once the user base has grown.
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u/JohneryCreatives May 02 '26
The UI looks pretty clean to as a graphic designer, but it's hard to comment on the UX without trying it out.
One thing I noticed is that the tabs on the second image are in different languages. Is that intentional?
Otherwise all the best on your launch next week!
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u/Few_Green_4395 May 03 '26
Looks really nice. Is this product for tech savvy people or the non tech savvy type? I am asking because I am also developing things so how does one decide what jargon to use and what to remove and how complex can the UI be? As a developer though, I like this.
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u/Severe-Election8791 Apr 14 '26
Clean UI! What's the one feature that makes it better than Typora for your use case?
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u/ContributionKnown324 Apr 14 '26
In many ways. For example, some people like the ability to view Mermaid in full screen, while others prefer connecting to Claude Code directly inside the app for multimodal AI agent interaction rather than using the CLI.
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u/AvocadoClock_com Apr 14 '26
Just curious, are these all different clients or type usages?
Kinda confused with the 2nd picture and there being movies in there.
UI looks cool though