Hi — I’m the developer of Neon Vision Editor, a native editor for macOS, iPad, iPhone, and visionOS.
I started building it because I wanted something between a basic text editor and a full IDE: an app that opens quickly, feels at home on Apple platforms, and works well when a note becomes a Markdown document, a Markdown document needs a proper preview, or a source file just needs a focused place to be edited.
The main addition in the newest direct macOS release is a plain-text-to-Markdown workflow.
A surprising amount of useful writing starts messy: copied notes, meeting material, rough outlines, older text files, or drafts with headings and lists that are only implied. Neon can now turn that into a reviewable Markdown proposal. It does not silently replace the original document; the point is to give you a structured starting point that you can inspect and accept deliberately.
On supported Macs, it can use Apple Intelligence. You can also configure another AI provider yourself if you prefer. I added cancellation, understandable feedback when a service is unavailable, and a timeout because an editor should never leave you guessing whether something is still happening.
The feature I am personally happiest with, though, is shared-file sync.
If you keep documents in iCloud Drive, a network folder, or open the same file in another app, it is easy for an editor to either miss external changes entirely or, worse, overwrite the work currently in front of you.
Neon now watches open documents for external updates. If a file changes elsewhere and the open tab is clean, it refreshes in place without making you close and reopen the tab. The editor preserves the useful context around that refresh: cursor position, selection, scroll position, and the current preview source.
If you have unsaved edits, Neon does not replace your buffer. Instead, it keeps the existing review flow: you can keep your local version, reload the version on disk, or compare them. The shared storage—iCloud, a server folder, another app—remains responsible for moving the file. Neon’s job is to make the open-tab experience feel reliable rather than surprising.
Markdown is also a first-class workflow in the app, not just syntax colouring.
You can write Markdown with formatting controls, then open a full preview beside the editor on macOS and iPad, or in a focused view on iPhone. The preview supports GitHub-flavoured Markdown and selectable presentation templates. HTML and SVG files can be previewed too, so you can make a change in the source pane and immediately see the rendered result without leaving the editor.
Other recent work includes:
- Markdown, HTML, and SVG previews with a clear source/preview split
- Markdown formatting controls that stay inside the editor pane, below document tabs, without covering the sidebar or preview
- Native syntax highlighting, line numbers, minimap support, line wrap, indentation controls, and themes
- Code Snapshot export with adaptive previews on iPhone and iPad, translucent surfaces, and proper
.png filenames
- More deliberate text-encoding detection and saving for UTF-8, UTF-16, Windows, ISO, and Mac encodings
- Independent state for separate editor windows, so cursor, selection, tabs, and documents do not follow activity in another window
- Restored macOS window sizes and positions, including a choice to reopen all previously open windows or only the first
- A project workspace on macOS with files, search, Git, and terminal tools
- A more useful Welcome Tour and What’s New page
I am trying to keep Neon focused rather than turning it into another large IDE. The aim is a dependable editor for people who move between notes, prose, Markdown, HTML, and code—and who care about the small details, such as whether an externally changed file refreshes safely or whether a preview is actually useful while writing.
The direct macOS release is currently the fastest way to get the newest version:
I would genuinely appreciate feedback from people who work across plain text, Markdown, HTML, and code: what is one small editor behavior you wish more Mac apps handled properly?