SplitDown: A Ghost-like Editor for WordPress

Ghost, a new blogging platform was released several months ago, and we covered how to get it installed on Mac. It is primed as a purely-for-blogging platform and has a minimalistic content editor that works well with Markdown, and quick side-pane previews to give you a great and effective blogging experience. It lets you focus on writing your content and little of anything else.

If however you cannot leave WordPress but want a content editor that can give you the same level of blogging experience as Ghost can, join me as we check out SplitDown.

Recommended Reading: Editorially – An Elegant Markdown Online Editor For Collaborative Writing

SplitDown

SplitDown is a plugin that will convert the TinyMCE WordPress editor into a Ghost-like Markdown editor. Once you have installed it, go to Settings > Writing, and select the content type – Page, Post, etc.

You can also select some provided extensions. For example, selecting the twitter.js extension allows you to embed clickable @mention and #hashtag. With table.js you can create tables in the content.

So now, we get a nice and simple content editor, but if you think it necessary, you can still use the Add Media button to embed Images or Videos easily. Splitdown also has a distraction-free mode; just click on the D next to the Add Media button.

Final Thought

SplitDown is a great plugin for those who want to only be focus on writing and little on anything else. One possible setback is that you need to write web content with Markdown to use it.