COPR is a collection of personal repositories for software that isn’t carried in Fedora. Some software doesn’t conform to standards that allow easy packaging. Or it may not meet other Fedora standards, despite being free and open source. COPR can offer these projects outside the Fedora set of packages. Software in COPR isn’t supported by Fedora infrastructure or signed by the project. However, it can be a neat way to try new or experimental software.
Here’s a set of new and interesting projects in COPR.
Ghostwriter
Ghostwriter is a text editor for Markdown format with a minimal interface. It provides a preview of the document in HTML and syntax highlighting for Markdown. It offers the option to highlight only the paragraph or sentence currently being written. In addition, Ghostwriter can export documents to several formats, including PDF and HTML. Finally, it has the so-called “Hemingway” mode, in which erasing is disabled, forcing the user to write now and edit later.
Installation instructions
The repo currently provides Ghostwriter for Fedora 26, 27, 28, and Rawhide, and EPEL 7. To install Ghostwriter, use these commands:
sudo dnf copr enable scx/ghostwriter sudo dnf install ghostwriter
Lector
Lector is a simple ebook reader application. Lector supports most common ebook formats, such as EPUB, MOBI, and AZW, as well as comic book archives CBZ and CBR. It’s easy to setup — just specify the directory containing your ebooks. You can browse books in Lector’s library using either a table or book covers. Among Lector’s features are bookmarks, user-defined tags, and a built-in dictionary.
Installation instructions
The repo currently provides Lector for Fedora 26, 27, 28, and Rawhide. To install Lector, use these commands:
sudo dnf copr enable bugzy/lector sudo dnf install lector
Ranger
Ranger is a text-based file manager with Vim key bindings. It displays the directory structure in three columns. The left one shows the parent directory, the middle the contents of the current directory, and the right a preview of the selected file or directory. In the case of text files, Ranger shows actual contents of the file as a preview.
Installation instructions
The repo currently provides Ranger for Fedora 27, 28, and Rawhide. To install Ranger, use these commands:
sudo dnf copr enable fszymanski/ranger sudo dnf install ranger
PrestoPalette
PrestoPalette is a tool that helps create balanced color palettes. A nice feature of PrestoPalette is the ability to use lighting to affect both lightness and saturation of the palette. You can export created palettes either as PNG or JSON.
Installation instructions
The repo currently provides PrestoPalette for Fedora 26, 27, 28, and Rawhide, and EPEL 7. To install PrestoPalette, use these commands:
sudo dnf copr enable dagostinelli/prestopalette sudo dnf install prestopalette
鄭仕群
Nice suggestions！Many Thanks！
Riley
Great post. PrestoPalette is a really cool app that I had never heard of.
Ujjwal Dey
I read and went through the links regarding Markdown and Ghostwriter etc and understand nothing from it. What exactly is a Markdown Format / Editor, what is its purpose and why would any human on the planet need one? The great Features listed by Ghostwriter website also makes no sense. What is the need for these strange features and who uses it for what goal exactly? I am glad it is free and open source but can’t say anyone would pay money to buy one anyway.
Willian
If you’re using a blog like Jenkyll or Hugo, you will have to use Markdown to format your text. One example. GitHub, Reddit, etc. use Markdown too.
That said, I don’t like Ghostwriter, or any similar markdown editor like it. I prefer a mix of WYSIWYG editor and a Markdown Editor, but it’s hard to find one that strikes the right balance to me.
Ujjwal Dey
I am trying to learn this Linux culture and the strange ways users do things instead of simple obvious ways to do it. Jenkyll, Markdown would be like people who prefer using Notepad instead of Microsoft Word in Windows OS because Notepad is free with the OS.
For a layman like me, there seems to be no actual utility or more importantly any need to torture yourself by using Markdown, Jenkyll, Ghostwriter, etc. when you can use many simple new blog tools or just use HTML for a static website.
I am guessing a Markdown Editor will help you save tons of money and bytes (space) in webhosting and server space and bandwidth. But from the websites / blogs I have visited these Markdown fans only use Text, no images or videos uploaded to the server, so how would it be expensive using any of the other free blog software or webpage editors, etc.?
There is no safety if you can use this ‘.text’ suffix trick to view the Markdown source for the content of any page on Markdown websites.
Regarding any known utility, Need, purpose : How exactly is this blog easy to read on a computer or any device?
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/
Does this Fedora Magazine use Markdown or Jenkyll or whatever it is that Linux users love so much? I believe they use WordPress like most of humanity on the internet.
Why not use Libre Office and so many other great tools also available for free to edit text. Or so many WYSIWYG Editors existing for decades.
I really wish there was a book on Linux that helped newbies understand the Linux culture instead of all the million technical books on Linux.
Matthew Bunt
Markdown is not a replacement for word processing software. To me, the point of markdown is to be easily human readable (and writable) whether you are reading the original text file or a rendered version. It’s also a (somewhat non-standardized) file format so you can easily use tools that turn markdown into html. Most people do not use markdown for writing emails or novels. They use markdown for blogs or software documentation and as you’ve already discovered, there are many different ways to accomplish the same task.
wereturtle
Actually, that is exactly what I use my own Markdown editor for: Word processing. Markdown is very ideal for novels due to a novel’s minimal formatting. Obviously, when you start getting into nested tables and other more complicated things, Markdown isn’t very good anymore. But for simple blogs, novels, etc., it’s awesome.
Murpholinox Peligro
One example> You can use markdown or html code to create a blog with Jekyll (https://jekyllrb.com/). For me it is far easier to do it in markdown.
Ttny
@Ujjwal Dey
Markdown format is mostly used by developers or admins to write quick documents in a decent presentable format with less effort. Once you get the hang of it, it’s much quicker to write in
format than it is to use MSWord or LOWriter. This format can then be parsed and viewed in whatever manner you want.
Markdown isn’t a tool for everyone. If you’re only using Linux for some arbitrary reason that is not technical, markdown isn’t a tool for you either. If you are writing software or scripts and want to share your work with others, then Markdown is the accepted standard. It’s easier to parse, view in raw format, and is used by all major git service providers.
If you think markdown is complex, wait until you see LaTeX.
wereturtle
Hello, I am the creator/maintainer of ghostwriter. I thought I’d chime in as to why someone would want to use a Markdown editor. Believe it or not, I use it for writing novels. I originally started with Libreoffice, but despite my very simple formatting, I noticed odd quirks when searching for where (for example) bold or italic formatting had been applied. Under the hood, the rich text formatting was not quite what I had expected. Markdown allows me to search for formatting and replace formatting very easily. Want to find all the bold formatting? Just search for “**”.
Then there is also the fact that plain text is simply faster than rich text for large documents. Libreoffice does handle a large novel admirably. However, I have sometimes had crashes on large documents, especially on earlier versions. I don’t like splitting my work into multiple files. It makes it harder come submission time. With plaintext, even the largest documents are lightning fast and never crash in 99% of plain text editors. And, I can use Pandoc to convert to epub easily for self-publishing. Just a few clicks and a quick conversion to azw with Calibre, and I’m reading my own work on my Kindle. I can’t say the same for Libreoffice.
As for who would pay for such an editor? Check out MacOS. There are a plethora of Markdown editors being sold for it, from Byword to iaWriter to Ulysses III. Some cost more than others. Last I checked, Ulysses III ran for $45. And it’s geared toward novel writing, to boot!
Obviously, Markdown won’t be for everybody, but it does work for a lot of people. Just try it out and see if you like it. If you don’t, you can convert your document to your favorite format easily enough.
Qoyyuum
Was wondering if you guys could also cover how to use Mutt in Fedora. Thanks!
Qoyyuum
Ghostwriter is cool but I prefer Typora for the added advantage of drawing flowcharts and sequence with mermaid.
Jan
On fc28 ranger (at least up to 1.7.2) is also in @System repo.
Martijn
Have been looking for a tool like Ranger for a while now, thanks for sharing 🙂
ww2w
why typora is not in fedora?
Paul W. Frields
@ww2w: Because it’s not open source.