Markwhen
Productivity
timelines and planning
SHOW HN2024
How HN took it
21 positive, 29 neutral or asking, 2 mixed, 10 critical, out of 62 comments about the project. Thread score +0.24.
Idea: 10 for, 2 againstDesign: 1 for, 6 againstExecution: 2 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Looks excellent and elegant as a Markdown-style timeline tool
From 4 comments
This looks amazing, will definitely try to incorporate it into my workflow!
sleepyfran on HNThis looks excellent - i've been looking for a timeline-based, simple-entry tool like this. Well done.
robinhowlett on HNThat is such an elegant solution. True sweet spot which was missing for me in traditional markdown!
IndieCoder on HNJust wanted to say congrats on the project. This is truly a masterpiece from the utility of it, the novelty, to execution with the vscode / meridian app, and sass. Brilliant…
thomasreggi on HN
Used for a client Gantt chart proposal
From 1 comment
I used Markwhen recently to make an interactive Gantt chart for a proposal to a collaborator and it went swimmingly. (We got the gig!) So, thank you! For the record, I used the…
mturk on HN
Better than Mermaid for timelines
From 1 comment
i was using mermaid for this for years, but markwhen just seems/feels instantly easier.
bcooney_info on HN
Objections
Date range syntax with slashes and dashes is unintuitive
From 3 comments
Things like Markdown work because they are intuitive, but the date range syntax in Markwhen is anything but intuitive. Why 2025-01-22 / 2026-10-24? Why not 2025/01/22 - 2026/10/24?
dustedcodes on HNI know ISO 8601, but that doesn't answer my question. Let me rephrase this, why was a format intuitive to a machine chosen instead of a format which feels more intuitive to a…
dustedcodes on HNI'm with you on / not being a good range separator but using it for the individual dates is much much worse. Please stick to - for YYYY-MM-DD to avoid confusion and keep /…
account42 on HN
Laggy performance in some browsers
From 3 comments
Hopefully without the latency, it's slow to respond on a 2022 M2 Macbook Air (tried Firefox and Safari)
owlglass on HNNot OP, but on Firefox 132, Sonoma 14.4, M1 Pro, it's quite janky. It's less so on Chrome and Safari, but it's still noticeable.
maleldil on HNOn a 3,2 GHz 6-Core i7 Mac Mini with Safari it also feels very laggy and unpleasant to use.
dewey on HN
Sign-up and sign-in are hard to find
From 1 comment
Looks very good. Just a note. It was really hard to find how to sign up. EDIT: and I still haven't found how to sign in in the desktop app.
d--b on HN
Requests
Support for dependent tasks
From 2 comments
This looks very good. Is there syntax for dependent tasks in the timeline? In other words tasks that only start once prerequisites are done. If the date of the original tasks…
snappr021 on HNI skimmed the documentation and didn't see any reference as to whether Markwhen supports dependencies? I.e. MSProject-style make one event dependent on another task ending or…
maroonblazer on HN
Calendar integration with Google Calendar and iCal
From 2 comments
I would love to be able to manage my actual calendar with this. By which I mean, I want a seamless bridge with google calendar, iCal, etc. that also lets me view, edit,…
garfieldnate on HNCreator here - glad to see people like markwhen! Been working on markwhen for a few years now, originally inspired by cheeaun's life timeline that another commenter posted about.…
koch on HN
Intel builds for Meridiem
From 1 comment
Meridiem seems to only have ARM builds, no Intel builds. Could you perhaps update it to include Intel?
ynx on HN
Mobile layout fixes
From 1 comment
Nice, these “Markdown for X” tools are super neat. Wish this worked nicely with mobile view, seems like a lot of the text are overflowing and margins are squished in the demo
jusgu on HN
Questions
What license is used?
From 1 comment
pretty nifty tool. What license are you using for distribution?
jagermo on HN
Is the project open source?
From 1 comment
Remark.ing sounds incredible. I've been considering building something like Memos but based on Markdown files rather than a relational database for personal use, but this comes…
RestartKernel on HN
Does it work with pandoc or org-mode?
From 2 comments
Looks neat! Is there a way to make it work with pandoc?
omnster on HNIs there something similar for org-mode?
Siira on HN
Alternatives named
Mermaid timeline and Gantt charts
From 2 comments
Note that Mermaid also supports timelines (if it is new enough): https://mermaid.js.org/syntax/timeline.html Mermaid is supported by gitlab/github and other markdown editors…
atoav on HNMermaid Gannt[0] diagram type might be similar to what you have in mind. [0] https://mermaid.js.org/syntax/gantt.html
edvardas on HN
Org mode
From 2 comments
Again reimplementing Emacs Org mode. Nice work! This looks terrific, but honestly Markdown is a document markup language. Org mode, while superficially similar in scope, is…
dotancohen on HNHave you looked at org mode for eMacs? That does precisely this
funnybeam on HN
Chronos Timeline Obsidian plugin
From 1 comment
Love this! If you're into representing time with simple markdown, check out the Chronos Timeline plugin for Obsidian too https://obsidian.md/plugins?search=chronos+timeline
marjipan200 on HN
cheeaun life timeline
From 1 comment
This is neat! It reminded me of this project by cheeaun that enables one to create a visual timeline based on a simple texted based format. The purpose was to plot one's life…
accrual on HN