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Using Markdown as HTML

news.ycombinator.com

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Using Markdown as HTML

#1

Post by trivialcode »

I had an idea a while ago. Instead of dealing with two sets of files, why not make a file that was Markdown and HTML at the same time?

I found this utility, which unfortunately seems to have been abandoned: https://github.com/showdownjs/showdown

All you need to do is add a few lines to the top of your Markdown file. Here's an example:

https://trivialcode.com/mdhtml_demo/demo.mdhtml

Take a look at the source of the .mdhtml file and you'll see what I mean.

If you're taking notes in Markdown this might make things a bit easier to keep organized. No need to update anything if you're exporting to HTML.

Thoughts? Is this a good idea? A bad one? I also wondered if generating Markdown via a web server and then converting it on the fly like this would be an interesting exercise. Seems like it'd be simpler than generating HTML.

I use Vim, so I've put this in my vimrc for editing:

autocmd BufNewFile,BufRead *.mdhtml set syntax=markdown

First time posting here. Let me know what you guys think.

Re: Using Markdown as HTML

#4

Post by detaro »

Sounds like a terrible idea. You loose the fallback, because Markdown treated as HTML instead of text is pretty much unreadable. (block the script to see what I mean: the rules about newlines etc in HTML do work differently)

Re: Using Markdown as HTML

#5

Post by trivialcode »

detaro wrote: post #4

Sounds like a terrible idea. You loose the fallback, because Markdown treated as HTML instead of text is pretty much unreadable. (block the script to see what I mean: the rules about newlines etc in HTML do work differently)

I realize that's an issue. But is the web even usable without JS these days anyway?

Re: Using Markdown as HTML

#7

Post by tannhaeuser »

I have taken a look at the .mdhtml file and don't know what you mean ;(

I you mean having one file that can contain both markdown and HTML, that's what markdown is already, since you can fallback to inline or block-level HTML in markdown.

If OTOH you want a HTML file that can also contain markdown (or other custom Wiki syntax, and text substitution variables, and a whole lot more), than that's available in SGML (on which HTML is based) via short references.

Re: Using Markdown as HTML

#8

Post by cpach »

It’s an interesting concept. But for me personally I don’t see any practical benefits of using it.

On my web pages I use Hugo. Conversation is done when the CI/CD system runs Hugo.[1]

[1] I currently use AWS Amplify. But it’s not hard to build a small Bash script to replace it.

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