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For the love of {whatever}, please stop using markdown or any other text to html markup. When you use it a lot yourself, you think it's no big deal. And you beg

For the love of {whatever}, please stop using markdown or any other text to html markup. When you use it a lot yourself, you think it's no big deal. And you begin to think your users will understand it easily. 37signals used to do this with Basecamp. I would bet $100 that if they asked their customers, their customers would overwhelmingly say that they prefer the WYSIWYG editor that is now in Basecamp instead of the old way. Make things easier for your users. Repeat.

AncientPC 15y ago
I'm going to have to disagree. Markdown is used on StackOverflow, GitHub, Reddit. While StackOverflow and GitHub users may be tech-savvy, Reddit has a lot of casual users. Markdown is not difficult to pick up, it merely codifies how people type anyway. Other advantages of using Markdown locally is to separate data from content, legibility, and standard support. Using Pandoc, you can convert Markdown files into HTML, PDF, manpages, etc.
- melvinram 15y ago
  Just because a few tech sites use it doesn't make it user friendly. This is a tech community so almost everyone here is likely comfortable with learning new things. The rest of the world isn't like that. Most people don't like learning new things, particularly if it's not going to really make a difference in their lives in a dramatic way. They are familiar with Word or Gmail. Think of it this way: let's say bought a new car tomorrow. With this new car, instead just sticking in the gas nossel and filling gas, you had to say a few magic words, stick the nossel in, fill gas and then say a few magic words. The magic words might be simple and even make sense. Like "adding gas" and "done adding gas". But they are just extra steps. Moving parts. Things that could go wrong. Easily. I'm saying this primarily because I've used markdown in the past and almost always without fail, I get emails and phone calls about how something isn't working the way it should be and invariably it's one character off from what they intended.
voidfiles 15y ago
In the short term I suppose you might not want to use markdown. But, in the log run markdown would be better then most wyswigs, and if you have a population of users who are sufficiently technical, or need to do something more intricate then a couple paragraphs markdown really is the way to go.
lucasb 15y ago
Basecamp uses textile, not markdown. I don't know of an option to switch it. I would be thrilled if it in fact used markdown -- I find it much quicker to write. For this particular customer, maybe the WYSwhatever is a little easier, but not substantially - I personally prefer the old Basecamp overall.

AncientPC 15y ago

I'm going to have to disagree. Markdown is used on StackOverflow, GitHub, Reddit. While StackOverflow and GitHub users may be tech-savvy, Reddit has a lot of casual users. Markdown is not difficult to pick up, it merely codifies how people type anyway. Other advantages of using Markdown locally is to separate data from content, legibility, and standard support. Using Pandoc, you can convert Markdown files into HTML, PDF, manpages, etc.

melvinram 15y ago
Just because a few tech sites use it doesn't make it user friendly. This is a tech community so almost everyone here is likely comfortable with learning new things. The rest of the world isn't like that. Most people don't like learning new things, particularly if it's not going to really make a difference in their lives in a dramatic way. They are familiar with Word or Gmail. Think of it this way: let's say bought a new car tomorrow. With this new car, instead just sticking in the gas nossel and filling gas, you had to say a few magic words, stick the nossel in, fill gas and then say a few magic words. The magic words might be simple and even make sense. Like "adding gas" and "done adding gas". But they are just extra steps. Moving parts. Things that could go wrong. Easily. I'm saying this primarily because I've used markdown in the past and almost always without fail, I get emails and phone calls about how something isn't working the way it should be and invariably it's one character off from what they intended.

voidfiles 15y ago

In the short term I suppose you might not want to use markdown. But, in the log run markdown would be better then most wyswigs, and if you have a population of users who are sufficiently technical, or need to do something more intricate then a couple paragraphs markdown really is the way to go.

lucasb 15y ago

Basecamp uses textile, not markdown. I don't know of an option to switch it. I would be thrilled if it in fact used markdown -- I find it much quicker to write. For this particular customer, maybe the WYSwhatever is a little easier, but not substantially - I personally prefer the old Basecamp overall.