I am looking for a note-taking application, ideally - WYSIWYG-type (Richtext) editor, but with a twist:
- It stores notes in Markdown or (more strict) CommonMark syntax -


Example of Markdown syntax:

## this is a header
### a smaller header

example of **bold** and *italic* text and <google.com> link:

- buy eggs
- buy milk

| a table | with two rows |
|:----------:|:------------------:|
| like this | and this |


----

as you can see, the notes are very easy to read and create, even when editor is broken.
- there are no dependence on application.
- full-text search is possible.
- formatting mess is impossible, because all the tags are visual and have no closing tag pairs.

take the text above and paste it into any online markdown renders to see how it changes.


So, the only application I have found so far is the "Texts" editor (trialware!), but its not available for Linux natively and costs $19 for license. It also produces incorrect markdown in corner cases (like two or more CR breaks).
Other one I found is ZimWiki, but it uses own syntax and has inflexible table support.


Do you know any more alternatives?
- WYSIWYG (not side-by-side, not in-line)
- Markdown/CommonMark or similar
- Linux?

I do not use Markdown very often, as I do not (personally) find it very intuitive, but for when I might need to I have uText installed on my pc. It is wysiwyg, as it has 2 panels -on one the text as written in markdown, and on the other how the text will look like in e.g. a browser -it also offers the basic options e.g. bold, italic etc as clickable toggles (helpful for those that do not know MD by heart).
This software is only for linux and the install instructions are here: http://www.noobslab.com/2015/08/try-utext-very-simple-editor-for.html

If you happen to also use Windows, I also like Ghostwriter (available for windows and Linux as well)(https://wereturtle.github.io/ghostwriter/), which may offer the wysiwyg preview on a separate window but offers the possibility to also have a cheatsheet as a separate window (again useful for those who do not know MD by heart)

You can look at the screenshots and see what you prefer

P.S In case these do not please you, there are also some others (will add as I remember them):
-Abricotine (http://abricotine.brrd.fr/)
-Remarkable (https://remarkableapp.github.io/)
-ReText (https://github.com/retext-project/retext)
-Uberwriter (http://uberwriter.wolfvollprecht.de/)

etc (e.g the poster below me just mentioned Haroopad)

or [url=http://abricotine.brrd.fr/]Abricotine perhaps?

But, but... are either in-line (abrocotine, ghostwriter, uberwriter) or side-by-side (retext, haroopad, remarkable) applications, thus more a layout editors or some call them wysiwym(m for mark), but not wysiwyg richtext. :/

In Texts, you can format the text as if were in normal word processor (wysiwyg richtext).

It handles the correct formatting automatically thus
- not distracting from work,
- making it very easy and
- keeping formatting correct,
which is enormously important for markdown where one missing space can break formatting.

Also, it can in-line edit, for example typing two asterisks, any word and then again two asterisks make the word instantly bold and so on. That's the issue which wysiwyg completely solves. If you have time, give Texts a spin in playonlinux (or similar prefix/bottle). It runs very good in wine and you may be amazed how simpler this concept is. The problem is that its not native Linux.

OK, I am dropping Zim from my alternative lists. Its Table module is buggy beyond comparison:

Autowarp in columns is basically non-existent. It will not carry the text to the next line, but expand it all the way to the right. Or next time, it carries it over but cuts big part of it in view mode (double clicking into edit mode shows the text).

And there is this table "sorting" "functionality", which happens when you click on table header. It will sort the whole table based upon column you clicked.
But the bug is: its ignored by Undo. So you can ruin your whole table in just one click.

Also, if you had your notebook opened on some location which is not available when it starts, it will complain and EXIT. So you have to manually edit its config file to remove the reference.......

For the application 8 years in development (since 2008), this is a "wow".

Well, I saw that not in-line or side-by-side requirement of yours after I had written the stuff (my eye tends to jump over some text at times) but since I had written it I let it be, in case you like uText at the very least (as, as I said that one has buttons to format the text e.g. select text, click the bold button, it shows up with asterisks on the left and as bold on the right, which seemed wysiwyg enough for me). I may use Linux, but I haven't completely thrown out Windows (I use Linux on a separate laptop, as I thought dual-booting wasn't worth the trouble/risk, plus I've read/listened to arguments against it -first by you in these forums (I think) and then by the youtuber Joe Collins). Anyways, I downloaded the Texts installer on that Windows laptop -it told me first that it required Pandoc and then on the starting file, I noticed the following "Texts is “rich editor for plain text”—you can write documents in visual interface and they will be saved in plain text format with Markdown markup.
" -in short, it looks like it converts the document (using Pandoc) to Markdown before it saves the file. Which means that you don't need a note application in which you can write in markdown (as me and the other dude both apprently thought) but rather one that converts your text to Markdown.
With that in mind, here are some other considerations:
-Consider using a regular programmer's editor with a pandoc plugin -e.g. by googling it appears there are some Pandoc plugins e.g. for Sublime Text.
-Consider using a LaTex wysiwyg editor with a pandoc plugin - Lyx is such a LaTex editor (as it seems from google search)...
In general if you google "*insert name of text editor* pandoc" you might find some more stuff...

Linux vs world issue is another one. Lets say - one uses what he/she thinks is best. But yes, Windows is absolutely no alternative for me, with its strongest point being that a lot of software is written against it, but again - 95% Windows software runs natively via Wine. Including Texts.

Yes, Texts requires Pandoc, but its not exactly a conversion plugin. Texts probably has own internal format. I have no idea how exactly it uses this engine, because markdown integration is seamless: it uses Pandoc to write and read MD probably into this format, but in the editor every tool behaves according to and limited to markdown. It also accepts direct markdown formatting, like one or two asterisks insta-convert into italic or bold and formatted minus signs become lists. Its seems to ignore direct table formatting though and escape those symbols in result MD if looked raw.

This is an interesting option indeed, a regular wysiwyg rich editor with ability to read and write markdown through plugin indeed may be an option. The only downside could be extra formatting which is not covered by MD (like specifying underline or similar text style, any fonts other than regular or pasting resized images). Those things are usually done via CSS when rendering MD into HTML by all previewers (also in MD side-by-side style editors). I'll look into it, thanks! (PS Sublime costs far more than Texts...)

Yes, but there are not many good richedit text editors available and the formatting should work both ways.
Just found this: http://www.lemmster.de/lyx-export-to-markdown.html
Lyx looks pretty cool, trying it out now!

Edit: Well, it turned out to be own world in itself. Lyx is a visual Latex markup editor, which follows Latex rules that limit what I can do. I had never any problem with WYSIWYG, because I just created conventions about each styles (text:16, serif; headers: 22, serif, bold etc) and followed them. Just like "Styles" found today in LibreOffice Write, that can apply different sets to paragraphs. So, unfortunately no to Lyx, because it adds own restrictions and rules about how I should work with text, which is another obstacle.

Well, so far all plugins I checked work very inconveniently and usually either preview or work one way. Tried to export from LibreOffice, but pandoc only accepts html - and html generated by LOWriter causes pandoc to spill really horrid MD. Besides the whole workflow via conversions into MD is anything but confortable....

Texts however has MD workflow integrated. Let me show:
- I create a new document and start filling it.
- As I fill it and save, it automatically writes it in valid markdown, but I work with it as if it were HTML editor. I don't have to worry about correct formatting of markdown (which is known to be pain in the butt -- by those who teach it!.. but it looks good on the disk!)
- I also checked its output in Ghostwriter (with custom sexy CSS) and already found many escaping and formatting caveats that Texts perfectly handled and which could have distracted me if I had them during workflow.
- I solve the whole tagging problem by my own custom tags, which start with a special symbol combo. And then I grep files over this combo and sort the entries.

I decided to abort Zim, because the tables are basically unreliable, and because its GTK2 (outdated toolkit). GTK3 is very weird and developer has been hinted to migrate to Qt, but he opted out under excuse that whole Zim interface has to be rewritten, and welcomed any effort.

Yes, so I use flat directory structure for notes, which I create in Texts in markdown format; and grep for tags using fulltext search. I wish there would be some Qt application like Texts (or Ghostwriter/Abricotine would be enhanced with such WYSIWYG function), but its currently MIA.

Not sure if this meets your requirements, but it's a great program regardless!

Notepad++ - https://notepad-plus-plus.org/

Unfortunately its not wysiwyg rich text. Its like gedit, kwrite, kate, geany etc - a monospace editor with highlighting. Thank you.

Let me know if this is too far-fetched for you: GNU Emacs with org mode

Emacs is not WYSIWYG, but it can render your typing on the fly, so that you see italics, bold fonts, headings, LaTeX formulas, tables, images and so on.
For a showcase of cool stuff you can do with it, you can look at Youtube, were you can find awesome presentations.

Edit: and if Markdown is necessary, you can export your file to Markdown directly or through pandoc for access to several markdown flavours.

Probably, but big thanks for the hint and the post! I know my way with Vim (but didn't get the hang of it) and Emacs is still high on my to-learn list. I just love the security that markdown gives to read the notes without any software "as-is" and WYSIWYG makes writing complex stuff with it enormously easier and faster. I already plan to attempt to write something like Texts. Perhaps.

I am currently using Spacemacs. It is an Emacs customization package that uses Evil (vi emulation modes) and a lot of config files (the layers) to create a nice uniform system. I am enjoying the best of vim (modes, keys, ...) and the best of Emacs (org-mode, magit,...). Many of the shortcuts of Emacs still work (unless there is some conflict).

This is how it looks like out of the box.

small update on this

Apparently Texts whilst easily making tables and formatting, produces some weird Markdown, like inserting escape characters.

Thus the best Markdown editor currently is hands down Ghostwriter, but that gets back to main issue I have with MD - namely formatting getting in the way, as its not WYSIWYG.

Finally, I settled with ODT and LibreOffice Writer. For three reasons:
1. ODT is apparently just a ZIP file and Content.xml has everything in clear text.
2. Because of that ODT is searchable and there are scripts to do so.
3. LO Writer is not going anywhere soon, its a stable widespread software.

Thus ODT can be mass-searched for text strings, allowing to implement the #tagging.
And LO Writer supports for templates, thus after defining styles of "text" "header" 1-3, "preformatted text" and "table text" its fairly easy. Version 5.1 (currently in Debian Stable Backports) has some output issues, so the default 4.3.3.2 is fairy good.