Markdown

Markdown

So what is this Markdown. You may have been reading/hearing about using Markdown to write web pages. Maybe you are like me, and disregarded Markdown as another passing fad in the world of web development. And like me you would have missed out on the all Markdown has to offer. Markdown is a plain text format that when processed through a Markdown editor, converts the text into HTML. This allows content creators to focus on their craft, and worry little about including proper HTML. I think of it as a form or short-hand for writing HTML. For example, the hash symbol is used for headings. So a single # would be converted into <h1> and ## would be an <h2> block. Not every HTML element is represented but a good deal of the ones mostly used.

There are a variety of Markdown editors as well web Applications that will process the file for you. I have been using iA Writer Pro for the Mac and really love it. Before when I made web pages, I was so worried about how the content would look on the screen, I was basically just writing HTML. Going about it in this manner really made writing difficult, as I was more focused on the structure of the document rather then the content. Now I just type and focus on what I want to say, and provide basic markup to the document to represent the HTML I want to include.

When I’m done with my document, I can ether upload the Markdown file or processes it with a Markdown converter program. Most blogging platforms now support Markdown. I use the Ghost blogging platform, and just cut and paste the text from iA Writer Pro into the Markdown panel then save. I could also just write my document there in the ghost web application, and save a step but I like to keep the original Markdown documents as backup copies of my Blog.

As of right now, Markdown supports Paragraphs, Headings, Blockquotes, Bold/Italic text, List (unordered,Ordered, Nested), Code formatting, Links, and Horizontal lines. In addition to the aforementioned items, Markdown also supports valid HTML code as well. This will allow you if you choose to include a HTML snippet if you wanted to. So for example, if I wanted to include a division section around my unordered list I could just type this:

<div class=“fancy-list”>
* Item One
* Item Two
* Item Three
</div>

Which would produce HTML output like this:

<div class=“fancy-list”>
<ul>
<li>Item one</li>
<li>Item two</li>
<li>Item three</li>
</ul>
</div>
  • Item one
  • Item two
  • Item three

Links are done like this; []() You would place the text of the link in the [] brackets and the URL in the (). Images are similar they look like this ![]().

As a content creator, That is all the HTML I want to deal with. Anymore then that, and your working more with coding HTML than Blogging. There are several great sites which help you get up too speed on Markdown, but it is really easy and should not take too long to master. Daringfireball has the most thorough. Here is a guide I found on Git Hub. Of course no helpful info about Markdown would be complete without a link to Wikipedia