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How Markdown took over the world

anildash.com

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Re: How Markdown took over the world

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And BBEdit

Still an editor, not a reader. The point is not to have to launch an editor and then "preview" a file you're just trying to read.

Most MD readers I’ve seen show an editor and preview side by side.

Re: How Markdown took over the world

#352
post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this a problem? To me it sounds like a it would be an advantage because you have everything you need to render it already built into the software.

Rendering is trivial. The issue is standards, and the DOM. No-one can write a Markdown implementation for the core of any major web browser in a form that is simultaneously acceptable to both their technical and political governance. Best you’ll get is a plugin. Strictly arm’s reach. Translation only.

I'm not quite sure I understand what you are saying. Is the essence of what you are saying that it is hard to agree on a spec for the Markdown (and how it is translated to HTML or directly to DOM?) Or that this represents a technical challenge I don't understand?

Re: How Markdown took over the world

#353
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You find MD files in every open-source project and lots of other places, but almost no viewers Huh? Any open-source project on GitHub, at least, has the viewer right there. It's the default view of markdown files. I assume other repos are similar. E.g. The readme https://github.com/jquery/jquery

Do you not realize you're in a browser, on a Web page, if you're on Github? And do you never actually clone the project to your machine and use it? When I sit down to actually use the project and I want to read the documentation, I want to double-click on the MD files and READ them. Not edit and preview, but read... with their intended formatting.

You said almost no viewers. I'm pointing out that the GitHub website has a built-in viewer.

If you're looking at the code locally, what editor do you use that doesn't have a markdown viewer? I use Sublime with MarkdownLivePreview. Although honestly I generally don't, because md is so easy to read without a viewer.

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