ViewMD

A lightweight GTK 3 markdown viewer for desktop Linux. It is ideal as your default app for opening .md files. Uses the excellent library md4c for markdown parsing. This project is sort of a companion app/fork of my other markdown project TrayMD.

Features

• Native GTK viewer - No webviews
• Read-only rendering - Focused on viewing markdown files
• Automatic reload - Updates the preview when the open file changes on disk
• Minimal UI - Clean toolbar with open and settings buttons
• Lightweight - Pure C, no web technologies, fast startup
• Hyperlink support - Left click opens links and internal anchors
• Document search - Ctrl+F with next/previous match navigation
• Local image support - Local images are resized to fit the the document window

Supported Markdown

Syntax	Description
# Header 1	Large bold header
## Header 2	Medium bold header
### Header 3	Small bold header
**bold**	Bold text
*italic*	Italic text
`code`	Inline code
...	Code block
- item	List item
> quote	Block quote
[text](url)	Link
~~strike~~	Strikethrough
| table | row |	Markdown tables
---	Horizontal rule
[^note] and [^note]: Text	Numbered footnotes with return links

Code blocks currently support a beta version of keyword highlighting for fenced languages c, java, and python.

YAML front matter is hidden from the preview by default. To display it as ordinary Markdown, turn off Hide YAML front matter in Settings and click Apply. The preference is saved between sessions. A block must open with --- on the first line (optionally after a UTF-8 BOM) and close with --- or ... on its own line. Unclosed blocks and delimiters later in the document are rendered as ordinary Markdown. A pair of --- delimiters at the start is interpreted as front matter; use *** for a leading horizontal rule when that would be ambiguous.

Footnote definitions may appear anywhere at the top level of the document. References are numbered by first use, and the notes appear below a horizontal rule at the end with a return link for each occurrence. Indent continuation lines and additional paragraphs by four spaces or one tab. Names are case-sensitive and cannot contain whitespace, brackets, or backslashes. The first definition of a name wins; unreferenced definitions are omitted, and undefined references remain literal. Markers in code, escaped text, links, and image alt text stay literal. Inline definitions (^[text]) and references inside footnote bodies are not supported.

Installation

Arch Linux (AUR)

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/viewmd

Debian/Ubuntu (.deb)

Install a built .deb package with:

sudo apt install ./viewmd_*.deb

Fedora/RHEL (.rpm)

Install a built .rpm package with:

sudo dnf install ./viewmd-*.rpm

Usage

Run viewmd to start the application.

• Open button: Open a markdown document
• Reload button: Reload the currently open document from disk
• Settings button: Adjust theme, fonts, and markdown accent colors

Files reload automatically after they are saved in another editor, including editors that replace the file when saving. ViewMD keeps your scroll position and retains the last preview if the file is temporarily unavailable. To keep a static preview, disable Automatically reload changed files in Settings and click Apply. The preference is saved between sessions; the Reload button and F5 remain available for manual updates.

Find in Document

• Press Ctrl+F to open search.
• Type to highlight matches as you search.
• Press Enter for next match and Shift+Enter for previous match.
• Press Esc to close search.

Set as Default .md Viewer

After installing, associate markdown MIME types with viewmd.desktop:

xdg-mime default viewmd.desktop text/markdown
xdg-mime default viewmd.desktop text/x-markdown

Verify the current default:

xdg-mime query default text/markdown

Test by opening a markdown file through your desktop association:

xdg-open README.md

Building From Source

make
sudo make install

This installs:

• Binary to /usr/local/bin/viewmd
• Desktop file to /usr/local/share/applications/viewmd.desktop

Uninstallation

sudo make uninstall

Dependencies

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S gtk3

Ubuntu/Debian

sudo apt install libgtk-3-dev

Fedora

sudo dnf install gtk3-devel

Packaging Templates

• Arch: packaging/arch/PKGBUILD
• Debian: packaging/deb/control.in
• RPM: packaging/rpm/viewmd.spec.in

License

MIT License

Other Useful Projects

• TrayMD is an app for taking notes in markdown with live editing TrayMD
• Preditor is an image viewer with a similar philosophy to viewmd preditor
• Try my AI panel plugin for XFCE XFCE Ask
• For a feature complete AI application try out ChatGTK
• A lightweight speech to text implementation Auriscribe
• A lightweight local movie database and browser ReelVault