GIgiancarlostoro·Feb 28, 2024Submission
ReText: Simple but powerful editor for Markdown and reStructuredText
1 points · Open discussionretext-project
retext
Python2015–2024
retext-project / retext
retext
ReText: Simple but powerful editor for Markdown and reStructuredText
6Distinct people
6Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
2.1KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
ReText: Simple but powerful editor for Markdown and reStructuredText
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year6 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2015-09-30 00:01:28 UTC to 2024-02-28 04:42:55 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
What Hacker News says
6 sourcesWhat hasn't been mentioned is the Zim desktop wiki: https://zim-wiki.org/
It as a lot of good ideas: It automatically creates new pages when following links for which a page does not exist yet. It also allows to arrange pages in sub-pages which are grouped in folders. And, what I think is really good for organizing, is it allows to rename pages, and automatically fixes the links which are affected by this.
What I see as a disadvantage and does not fits my needs is that it uses an own markup format. I need reStructuredText / reSt markup (which can also be rendered by github), specifically for program documentation. reStructuredText is more suited for longer documentation, it has better code formatting, can show tables of contents, and is also less tied to output in a HTML page (it can easily be converted to a LaTeX or PDF document). I see
Read the rest
a big value in being able to collect information in the same markup format as will be used for final code or API documentation, this reduces friction.
Zim allows to export reStructuredText, but currently this does only work partially.
What I use instead is a reStructuredText editor which is a Python app which is called retext (https://github.com/retext-project/retext). It allows to enter text and preview it quickly, and to follow any links. reStructuredText also allows to view pages in a browser using restview (https://pypi.org/project/restview/), similar to gitit or grip for Markdown.
What I still miss is the capability to quickly create and open new links, as Zim or vimwiki can do. This is an option which is sorely missing in retext. I think for people who have similar needs but do not need the stronger structuring of reStructuredText, vimwiki is perhaps a very good option.
I use WriterPlus [0] on Android and ReText [1] on Linux for taking notes (markdown supported). Syncing notes is via Syncthing [2]. All plain text files so not much dependency on the apps themselves. Works perfectly.
Update: This thread prompted me to re-check the options on Android and I found Markor [3]. Much more polished and I was able to point it to the notes folder. Now I have the option of using it or WriterPlus (though seems to me that Markor's option of opening notes in preview mode by default + more customization options makes it better than WriterPlus).
[0]: https://writerp.fileplanet.com/apk
[1]: https://github.com/retext-project/retext
[2]: https://syncthing.net/
[3]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.gsantner.m...
In Joplin – a note taking and to-do application with synchronization capabilitiesI'm happier with retext (https://github.com/retext-project/retext). Fully open-sourced, live preview, and taking ~50% less resources than Typora to deliver the same features. If I'm not using vim, I'm in live preview mode in retext.
In Typora: A truly minimal markdown editorI can highly recommend ReText. https://github.com/retext-project/retext
In Show HN: Caret – Better Markdown Editor for the DesktopYou already have competition in the form of ReText:
https://github.com/retext-project/retext
(Unless that's the project?)
However, there are some things that ReText does poorly, like syncing between the output window and the input text:
https://github.com/retext-project/retext/issues/108
and some things ReText doesn't really do at all, such as autocompletion of citation labels, checking URLs to see if they are 404, or proper syntax highlighting in math mode.
Those kind of features tend to require doing difficult things like parsing the input, which is why most text editors don't bother.
In Ask HN: What do you want in a text editor?