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Markdown Tutorial
- livealife 6y agoPerhaps one of the easiest ways to learn markdown in short time amongst loads of tutorials online.
- livealife 6y agoMore comprehensive reference here, https://github.github.com/gfm/ https://github.github.com/gfm/
- mosselman 6y agoWhen you search for 'markdown cheatsheet' on duck duck go, you get a cheat sheet at the top. Wouldn't that be enough? https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=markdown+cheatsheet&ia=answer&iax=1 https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=markdown+cheatsheet&ia=answ...
- forgotmypw17 6y agoMarkdown is fickle and at times unpredictable, and should not be the default formatting method for user input, imo.
- dt3ft 6y agoAgreed, but what else is there for simple formatting like headings, bold, underline, img? I had to go with markdown because I could not find anything else out there.
- krmbzds 6y agoI would recommend AsciiDoctor: https://asciidoctor.org/ https://asciidoctor.org/
- geraldbauer 6y agoAnother great alternative is Wikitext used by the Wikipedia (among many others) see https://www.wikipedia.org https://www.wikipedia.org or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Wikitext https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Wikitext PS: Why not have the best of both worlds, that is, Markdown and Wikitext? Yes, you can; see Texti (Text with Formatting Instructions) - https://texti.github.io https://texti.github.io
- scrollaway 6y agoTexti is yours? It looks like an interesting experiment. Lots of good ideas in it, though it gets way too unfocused/wip in the second half of the document, especially in some areas like the "blocks". (Also your emojis are broken) Having hash line comments is probably a non-starter in a text format (the latex % syntax is probably a better idea indeed if you want line comments). Also the -- strikethrough -- syntax will probably conflict too much. You want comments to use a syntax which is otherwise nearly unused.
- geraldbauer 6y agoThanks for your kind words (yes, sorry for the missing disclaimer). Texti is slowly evolving :-) The point is NOT to invent new syntax [1], thus, using the established unix-style/shell-style/python-style/ruby-style for comments. For a litte real world examples that generated HTML, LaTeX and Markdown from Texti see https://github.com/texti/texti.github.io/tree/master/samples https://github.com/texti/texti.github.io/tree/master/samples PS: The main missing feature (among others) in Markdown and that rocks Wikitext (and Texti too) is built-in (recursive) templates (with optional parameters) using the {{}} syntax. [1]: I know % is not new because it's used in LaTeX but LaTeX is esoteric compared to Python, Ruby, Shell Scripts, Unix Configs, etc.
- scambier 6y agoMarkdown is at a sweet spot that combines ease of read and write for technical and non-technical users. It's primarily made to be written and shared as-is.
- tasogare 6y agoSweet spot as long as you don’t want anything basic like using colors. In my experience Markdown has been about as much painful and frustrating than helpful.
- shakna 6y agoColor isn't really that basic a thing - you need to take into account the medium that the color will be displayed in to do it correctly. However, as Markdown is supposed to be nothing more than a superset of HTML, you can simply reach for CSS. It won't always render the best if you're moving from Markdown to physical medium, but that's largely dependent on the engine.
- EE84M3i 6y agoI very rarely, if ever, encounter markdown inputs where markdown is a superset of HTML. Almost always script tags and various other sorts of active content are stripped at the very least.
- shakna 6y agoIf certain tags are being stripped, then you're probably in a position where arbitrary input isn't desirable. If this is an input to a website, for example, the webmaster really doesn't desire everyone to be able to reinvent the blink tag, or be able to express everything in rainbow fonts. In which case Markdown shines, for it's ability to express simple markup, that can be safely expressed.
- geraldbauer 6y agoYou can use colors - like in html and css you keep style and structure separate. If you want all your heading 2 blue, for example, than you can use h2 { color: blue; } and so on and so forth. PS: By the way, you are currently commenting in text without colors - how do you feel?
- tmpfs 6y agoCheck out commonmark for something less fickle than your average flavor. It adds a specification so users and developers know what to expect.
- aendruk 6y ago> unpredictable A short feedback loop (e.g. live preview) should take care of that.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- raviisoccupied 6y agoI am not technical. I started using markdown to write my university papers, and it really helped with quickly formatting my text (as well as not worrying about Microsoft Word crashing). I really think more people should be aware of it as it would speed up so many workflows. Thanks for this tutorial!
- thwave 6y agoMarkdown has no reasonable support for RTL.
- O_H_E 6y agois it really md's job? How can it even support RTL? I would have thought that falls under the editor/parser.
- jedimastert 6y agoHow do you mean? Markdown is just a funny looking way to type things.
- sandGorgon 6y agowhich flavor of markdown is this ?
- jtvjan 6y agoJust the original, Daring Fireball Markdown.
- tomcooks 6y agoThe only problem I have with markdown is that it's inherently based on those keyboard layouts with easy access to # and `. In other news, website looks like crap on Firefox mobile.
- JoBrad 6y agoI have almost entirely switched to using an editor which supports real-time preview for Markdown editing. There is a plugin for my editor (VSCode - but I'm sure that something similar exists for most other editors that support plugins) which has keyboard shortcuts for marking content as a given type (e.g. Alt+c will mark selected text as inline code). Perhaps this would address the problem you're talking about?
- cptskippy 6y ago> Perhaps this would address the problem you're talking about? He's talking about physical keyboard layout, nothing you suggested will help with that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout
- JoBrad 6y agoI understand that. If you don't have a # readily available, but your editor allows you mark a line as Heading 1 by pressing Ctrl+1, then it does in fact address their problem.
- tomcooks 6y agoSurely there are workarounds, one could also just switch to an US layout (an instantaneously become a faster, less tired developer, since the same problem happens with commonly used symbols such as / [ ] etc. which are easy to type on anglophone keyboards). It's probably a unsolvable problem unless: - everyone adapts to using common, more difficult to type, characters such as " or ? (but then how does the system differentiate between common figures of speech and formatting?) - everyone switches to US/ENG layouts, but we already had enough US-centric systems in the past and I don't know how many wouldn't see this change as a personal/national attack - the creation of a Fn keys standard, but that means all hardware producers would have to comply to eat (yeah) and mobile typing would become problematic, along with extra strain from having to press the "fn" modifier - your solution, which i find elegant, but adopted OS-wise instead of just inside an editor plugin. but then what if ctrl-1 is my shortcut for switching desktops, or closing windows? Maybe the only cure is to accept defeat, create localized versions and create translators - after all this seems how languages work.
- alphagrep12345 6y agoWhy the sudden popularity of markdown these days? I do not understand.
- jordanmorgan10 6y agoOn the other hand - was its popularity ever "down"?
- CharlesW 6y agoMarkdown is 15 years old, and adoption has been relatively gradual. I believe you're experiencing the frequency illusion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases#Frequency_illusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases#Frequ...
- als0 6y agoI recommend reading the past HN post and thread "Don't write documentation in Markdown" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22675165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22675165