Feltspiration

I hate Microsoft Word. I just do.

I know. I know. It's useful; it's used everywhere; and the only real competitor out there is Google Docs. Perhaps as a software developer, I have a different lens than some, but I wish we could just use...something better. Or, perhaps, something simpler.

Let's be real: 90% of stuff people use Word for could be replaced by a markup format, be it Markdown, Asciidoc, Org Mode, or the like. Sure, you don't get the same features Word provides, but you also don't get the surprising behavior that leaves you scratching your head or the documents someone else wrote that follow none of the conventions Word has rightly supported for years if not decades (semantic styles like Titles, Headings, etc.).

Sure, you may not want to create a complicated document with these markup formats, but most of the time people jot down some notes for a meeting or write a list of the things they need to do that. Nevertheless, markup formats can actually be used for a lot more than just this, as applications like Obsidian show.

That said, a lot of markup format apps are also rather complex. I've tried using a few, and honestly they seem cool at first but all eventually feel like overkill. It may just be me, but I don't need a markup app to be my text editor also or to provide a full environment to work in. I need it to get out of the way so I can use my preferred editor to write content and then use some awesome CLI apps (I'm looking at you fzf, ripgrep, and fd) to do interesting things with that content.

So, that's why I'm making Felt. I want software that is as simple as makes sense and that focuses on a single thing: rendering markup to a visually pleasing but simple GUI with proportional fonts and theming that can be configured by the user. Having a daemon/socket as well would be nice, as that would allow users (read: me) to control the a running Felt process and allow further interaction with other programs.

Perhaps simple isn't always better. But I think the right kind of simple, the kind that follows the UNIX philosophy of doing one thing and doing it well and allowing interaction with a larger software ecosystem, has the possibility to be more useful, more simple, and more efficient than complex software that creates its own echo chamber.

Who knows, the time may come when people become fed up with large, complex software or bloated web pages. In that world, something as simple as a markup renderer could become the way people want to access their content. Felt could remain some niche application that only I use, but it could be a way for people to get their content in many means (HTTP, FTP, Reticulum, local, etc.) and just render it and move on with their lives.

Whether Felt turns out to be useful for other or not, as a software developer I want to create well-crafted, minimal, and intentional software that chooses to be what it needs to be. Nothing more, nothing less.

Sometimes, the best thing is to let the problem shape the solution, and to let the enough solution be enough.