I’m not an editor, but I find myself writing regularly. Whether it’s a small note or a reminder for myself, I can jot it down anywhere—on a napkin or in my favorites.
It’s more interesting to write longer posts and documents; for those, I really want a nice place where everything is tidy and nothing gets in the way. Plus, I want to be able to add headings and bold text. So, the choice of text editor comes into play.
I’ve tried a bunch of different ones, including: phone notes, Apple Notes, Bear, Notion, Teletype, Telegraph, Panda, Craft, Google Docs, VS Code, Obsidian, Affine, AnyType, WriteMonkey, and One Drive. They’re all good in their own ways, but I wanted the one. Fast and minimalist.
The ones that grabbed me the most were Typora and iA Writer. Huge respect to the designers of these editors, but I wasn’t a fan of their limited cross-platform support and pricing.
At some point, I had the idea to create my own editor, and that’s how v1.qurle.net/md came to be. I learned how to make headings and save documents locally, but parsing Markdown and working with the cursor turned out to be scarier than I thought. I got scared and ran away from the computer while an unfinished editor hung out on the site.
Just recently, after a year and a half, I saw a ton of alternatives to Notion. The sudden influx of options made me think, “Damn, I want that too.” An image of an “empty” editor with a minimal interface that can handle Markdown started forming in my mind.
Markdown is a very simple markup language often used by programmers. It allows you to add some flair to your text with simple syntax. For example, headings are made with
# like this, and bold text is**like this**. Almost all the applications I mentioned above work with Markdown.
I tried to hold back the idea as best as I could but ultimately couldn’t resist. Armed with my favorite framework, I opened Google and went to create my first demo. It worked! That’s how Type was born.
Type had one goal—to be simple. This led to other features of the editor: fast performance, minimal buttons, shortcut recognition, and auto-saving. Right now, Type is browser-based but completely local—it can even work without the internet. You can continue working on your document by uploading and downloading .md files.
Some features were added just for convenience: different fonts, dark mode, enabling and disabling grammar checks. Adding features and fixing bugs took over a hundred commits and deployments. I tried several libraries, toggled React on and off, learned how to write service workers and work with hidden file systems. It wasn’t easy but was incredibly interesting.
I wanted Type to feel like a notebook without lines. In a notebook, it’s easy to start writing; it doesn’t distract you and just works. This defined the design of the editor. For complete immersion in design ideas, I sketched everything out in a notebook. I only used Figma for icons and OG images.
If you love writing a lot, give Type a try in practice. Let me know in the comments about any issues you find. Share what you liked! Show it to friends who love writing—they might appreciate something minimalist too.
By the way, Type won’t be like Notion. If you’re looking for an alternative, check out Affine—I really liked it.
I’m not an editor. But Type is an editor. Try it at type.baby.