
Facebook Extending Markdown Support for Status Updates - praveenscience
https://blog.praveen.science/facebook-extending-markdown-support-for-status-updates/
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forgotmyhnacc
Surprised this is on the front page, when it's clearly not true. Markdown
support for statuses is only available for Workplace accounts.

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praveenscience
Not exactly, it's been enabled for few folks in India. The screenshot I have
posted is on Groups page on an Incognito Chrome window, where there are no
extensions or plugins installed.

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underwater
I don't understand why they would chose markdown instead of a true WYSIWYG
input. The website post input already uses Draft.js, which is the editor that
also powers the Notes product. All the pieces are there.

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praveenscience
WYSIWYG is kinda difficult for developers to control the allowed HTML part as
it can generate a lot of gibberish and null characters. The same goes with
contenteditable too. The good thing is, if you have Markdown, you can export
it to HTML, text, doc, PDF, or any other format.

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underwater
Draft.js doesn't use the native browser content editable behaviour. It ensures
that only valid markup can be generated: all text exists in a single block
level element (p, h1, h2, li, blockquote) and then inline text can have an
number of a developer-defined formatting options applied (emphasis, bold,
links).

It doesn't have the compatibility problems and ambiguity that markdown suffers
from.

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skilled
Interesting update. Though, it begs the question whether Facebook's current UI
can handle such styling to its full extent.

That said, is posting on Facebook still a thing? I haven't used the platform
in the last 3 years and get the idea that traditional status updates have
evaporated.

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traek
Given that Workplace (the enterprise version of Facebook) has supported
Markdown for a while now, I think it’s a safe assumption that they’ve built
the UI to handle it.

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skilled
Never heard of Workplace before. Does it have ads like normal Facebook UI?

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mtmail
Based on their FAQ (I don't use Workplace myself) "There are no ads in
Workplace."
[https://www.workplace.com/workplace/faq](https://www.workplace.com/workplace/faq)

