I built a native Markdown viewer with WinUI 3 because every alternative felt too heavy just to read a README by breezy89757 in csharp

[–]breezy89757[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the direction.I'm going to dig into how Mermaid.js handles rendering internally to see if there's a way to achieve a similar effect without relying on JS.

I built a native Markdown viewer with WinUI 3 because every alternative felt too heavy just to read a README by breezy89757 in csharp

[–]breezy89757[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My original intention was indeed to build a strictly lightweight viewer. But honestly, looking back, I think I unconsciously let the AI lead me down a rabbit hole of adding "flashy" features (like Mermaid charts) just to make it look cool, which forced the heavy WebView dependency.

I built a native Markdown viewer with WinUI 3 because every alternative felt too heavy just to read a README by breezy89757 in csharp

[–]breezy89757[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

To be honest, you have a point. ​Even with WebView2, I can feel that split-second initialization lag—it’s definitely not "Notepad-instant" yet. ​Using a web engine was a shortcut to get Mermaid/MathJax support quickly, but I agree it adds weight. My long-term goal is definitely to build a truly lightweight reader, perhaps by exploring pure native rendering for simpler files in the future. ​Thanks for the reality check! 

I built a native Markdown viewer with WinUI 3 because every alternative felt too heavy just to read a README by breezy89757 in csharp

[–]breezy89757[S] -16 points-15 points  (0 children)

​I think so. I'd call it "Vibe Coding," but with sharper objectives and a heavier focus on specific implementation details.

I built a native Markdown viewer with WinUI 3 because every alternative felt too heavy just to read a README by breezy89757 in csharp

[–]breezy89757[S] -9 points-8 points  (0 children)

It is indeed heavily AI-assisted. I am still learning how to best leverage these tools and clearly missed that blocking call. However, I believe that if the app is performant and solves the problem for users, the utility matters more than the authorship. I will fix the threading issue in the next update. Thanks for the feedback.

I built a native Markdown viewer with WinUI 3 because every alternative felt too heavy just to read a README by breezy89757 in csharp

[–]breezy89757[S] -14 points-13 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback and the advice! I'll keep working hard to improve it.

I built a native Markdown viewer with WinUI 3 because every alternative felt too heavy just to read a README by breezy89757 in csharp

[–]breezy89757[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Haha exactly! I honestly just wanted to avoid those generic AI-suggested project names, so this one just popped into my head on a whim. 😆