Sounds great, look forward to seeing that. After using it a bit more, another thing occurred to me - there’s no way to open arbitrary files. I don’t use MarkDown for “just notes” or “just one thing”, I keep markdown files all over the place. I had set the repository directory to be that of my blog posts during first run, but then I can’t open things in my notes directory or documents folder, and I can’t see anywhere in the settings dialogue to change it. Am I missing something?

Yeah “but not as annoying” lol. No idea what you mean about jeeps: I’m in the UK, and not a car enthusiast either.

Seems quite good - I’ve tried a LOT of MarkDown editors over the years, but until quite recently, I’d stuck with Zettlr for a long time. I’ve recently reinstalled my laptop, which made me look for alternatives to some software, and I’ve been playing round with MarkText for the last few days, which seems nice.

HelixNotes is definitely good - if I had to drop MarkText, I think I could get on well with it. I like that they have a debian repository, so I can keep it updated with the usual system update software. I downloaded the AppImage as a quick test, but it didn’t work because it was compiled against an old version of glibc.

The only thing I don’t like so far is the format toolbar is at the bottom of the editor screen, and I haven’t found a way to move it.

What about Microsoft Bob? Doesn’t that count as their first attempt?

That’s fair. I’m thankful for your perspective - food for thought. You’re right I’ve not seen that section of society from that angle, though I have a sibling who went through addiction. They were a “functional addict” and were working throughout, so I’m aware of that angle, at least. That was all decades ago now, though their partner had a relapse after an operation when they were given opiate painkillers. I think you’re being hard on yourself though - and I don’t know your circumstances, so I don’t know how you got into that mess, but although it’s easy for outsiders to frame addiction as a personal failure, I think the circumstances that led to that path are often ignored. I see such problems as a systemic failure, rather than a personal one. I’m glad you got clean of the class A’s, it’s no small achievement, and I hope you’re making progress with the rest - though I understand that Nicotine is perhaps the hardest of all to kick. I do think you have a bit of survivor bias there, though. One thing I’ve learnt recently, is that not everyone has the same abilities to get through - I know you’ve seen chancers, and you managed to get through, but I don’t think it’s true that everybody could have taken your path.

For myself, I’m getting help from the CAB, so we’ll see where that goes. I start 1-to-1 support next week with the local “Autism Hub” which is an entirely new thing to me - I’ve never “been in the system” before, so it’s an “interesting” learning curve. I have ups and downs - the past few days I have been far better, but I keep relapsing due to factors outside of my control - mainly caused by said system. I just need the time and space to recover properly, but I don’t know if I’m going to get it. Purely “mental health” things are something this system seems hell bent on denying, so I’m expecting a continuing struggle. I have no choice but to push on.

I can assure you it’s far from easy to get PIP, as I’m going through the process at the moment. It’s degrading and stressful (which is the thing I’ve been told to avoid) and seems entirely arbitrary. The application process is opaque and assessment is not performed by medical professionals. If someone IS getting PIP, they have jumped through MASSIVE hoops to do so. If you think they’re “cheating” then I challenge you to try to get it yourself. You really seem to have no idea.

I hate your reductive “if they’d just” rhetoric, whether directed at drug use or other “simple to solve” difficulties that are, in practice, far from simple to solve. You see an outward symptom as the root cause, and you also fallaciously assume that even if that IS the root cause, that it’s easy to solve. And before you assume that I’m one of those people “doing drugs all the time”, I’m not.

I started working in 1985, and I’ve worked right up to July last year, when I got ill. Prior to that, I seldom had time off sick - I had less than two weeks off in the past decade.