Vision Document: Shoe Choo (集中)
What We’re Building
Shoe Choo is a distraction-free, WYSIWYG Markdown editor for macOS — inspired by Typora’s seamless editing experience. The name “集中” (Shoe Choo) means “focus” in Japanese, reflecting the app’s core philosophy: letting writers concentrate on their words without visual noise.
Who It’s For
- Writers, bloggers, and technical authors who work in Markdown daily
- Developers who want a clean Markdown editor for documentation
- Anyone who values a focused, minimal writing environment on macOS
Why We’re Building It
Typora demonstrated that a Markdown editor can feel as natural as a word processor while preserving Markdown’s portability. However, as a closed-source, cross-platform Electron app, it doesn’t fully leverage macOS’s native capabilities. Shoe Choo aims to deliver a Typora-quality writing experience as a native macOS app — fast, lightweight, and deeply integrated with the platform.
MVP Features (In Scope)
- Live WYSIWYG Markdown Editing — Inline rendering of Markdown syntax as the user types (headings, bold, italic, links, images, lists, blockquotes, code blocks)
- Focus Mode — Dims non-active paragraphs to help the writer concentrate
- Typewriter Scrolling — Keeps the active line vertically centered
- Full-Screen Writing — Immersive distraction-free mode
- Syntax Highlighting — Subtle highlighting for Markdown elements in edit mode
- File Operations — Open, create, save, and auto-save
.mdfiles with standard macOS file handling - Image Support — Drag & drop and paste images into documents
- Export — Export to HTML and PDF
- Dark Mode — Full support for macOS light and dark appearances
- Typography — Configurable fonts and line spacing for comfortable reading
Out of Scope (v1)
- iOS / iPadOS app (planned for future)
- iCloud sync (planned for future)
- Collaboration / real-time editing
- Plugin / extension system
- Table editing GUI
- Math (LaTeX) rendering (may be added post-MVP)
- Version history / change tracking
- Vim / Emacs keybindings
Open Questions
- Should the app use a document-based architecture (NSDocument) or a custom document management approach?
- What Markdown parsing library to use? (swift-markdown, cmark, Ink, or custom?)
- How to handle inline WYSIWYG rendering — TextKit 2 or a WebView-based approach?
- Should the app be distributed via the Mac App Store or direct download only?
Competitive Landscape
| App | Strengths | Weaknesses (opportunity) |
|---|---|---|
| Typora | Best-in-class WYSIWYG, clean UI | Electron (not native), paid, no open source |
| iA Writer | Beautiful typography, focus mode | Limited Markdown rendering, no inline WYSIWYG |
| Obsidian | Powerful features, plugins | Not WYSIWYG by default, complex |
| MacDown | Free, open source | Split-pane preview only, outdated |
Success Criteria
- Cold launch in under 1 second
- Memory usage under 50MB for typical documents
- Seamless inline Markdown rendering with no visual “mode switching”
- Natural macOS feel (keyboard shortcuts, system integrations, appearance)