How to use markdown for python with pycharm?
Uninstall Markdown Support (by Jetbrains) (has no side preview)
Install Markdown Navigator 2.0 (by Vladimir Schneider) (has side-preview)
https://github.com/vsch/idea-multimarkdown
This should give you a per-compiled side view of you .md file.
I'm on the same boat. Making transition from RStudio to PyCharm. You can install markdown plugins directly within the PyCharm settings. Within Pycharm I searched and downloaded "Markdown support". Once you're editing the Markdown file, you should have a "view" to see the markdown in raw or rendered format and even some formatting buttons like in a normal Text Editor.
I think you need to follow these tag instructions to have the HTML render correctly.
You should also take a look at IntelliLang for language injections, which I think are equivalent to R "chunks".