Markdown is a lightweight markup language, created by John Gruber in 2004. You type two hashes followed by the word Title and the rendered result is Title in large bold. You type two asterisks around a word and it becomes bold. You type a bracket with text, then parentheses with a link, and it becomes a clickable link. The system is elegant, but it has syntax. And most people see syntax, consider it complicated, and give up.
Notas BLA hides the syntax. You type the hashes before the word Title, and the moment you finish the line, the screen shows a large title in serif New York, and the hashes disappear from view. You type two asterisks around a word, and the word becomes bold without you seeing the asterisks. You paste a bracket text parentheses URL link, and the screen shows a clickable blue link, with the URL invisible.
How does it work under the hood? The editor is SwiftUI with AttributedString. With each character typed, the app applies regex over the text, identifies markdown patterns, and renders corresponding visual attributes. When the cursor enters a line that contains a marker, the marker reappears (so you can edit). When the cursor leaves the line, the marker disappears again. It is a subtle effect that many people do not even notice is happening.
Whoever has never heard of markdown uses Notas BLA the same way they would use any notes app. Type the text, see the beautiful result, save. Never touch the hashes, the asterisks, the brackets. Markdown works underneath, without showing up.
Whoever knows markdown keeps typing the syntax they know. The two groups coexist in the same app, with no need for configuration, no need for beginner mode and advanced mode. The app adjusts itself automatically to what you are doing.
The design decision is worth highlighting: other editors do invisible markdown too. Bear does, iA Writer does, Typora does. Apple Notes does not, writes literal markdown showing all the symbols. Notas BLA joins the best of two worlds: invisible markdown (Bear style) plus saves a pure .md file in iCloud Drive (plain text file style), instead of a proprietary database (Apple Notes style).
Another important detail: markers that only make sense for the writer (like hashes for title, asterisks for bold) stay invisible. Markers that need to remain visible for reading (like list letters, greater-than symbol for quote) keep appearing, formatted. The rule is clear: if it serves only as an instruction to render, hide. If it serves as visual content, show.
The result is a markdown app that looks like a common text editor, but delivers the power of structured writing. Whoever has never used markdown does not notice. Whoever uses markdown gains efficiency. Both groups win.
