Want to instantly preview finnicky markdown files, but don't want to leave your favorite editor, or have to do it in some crappy browser textarea? vim-instant-markdown is your friend! When you open a markdown file in vim, a browser window will open which shows the compiled markdown in real-time, and closes once you close the file in vim.
As a bonus, github-flavored-markdown is supported, and styles used while previewing are the same as those github uses!
You first need to have Ruby with RubyGems, and node.js with npm installed. (In the future there might be a version which won't require node.js at all, making installation easier)
[sudo] gem install redcarpet pygments.rb[sudo] npm -g install instant-markdown-d- If you're on Linux, the
xdg-utilspackage needs to be installed (is installed by default on Ubuntu). - Copy the instant-markdown.vim file from this repo and and place it in your ~/.vim/plugin folder, or use pathogen.
- Open a markdown file in vim and enjoy!
OSX and Unix/Linuxes*.
*: One annoyance in Linux is that there's no way to reliably open a browser page in the background, so you'll likely have to manually refocus your vim session everytime you open a Markdown file. If you have ideas on how to address this I'd love to know!
If you're curious, the code for the mini-server component for this plugin can be found at http://github.com/suan/instant-markdown-d. A plugin can easily be written for any editor to interface with the server to get the same functionality found here.