

Reasons to Learn Markdown - jonmwords
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why-you-need-to-learn-markdown.php

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raju
Slightly tangential, but I recently started using Mou (<http://mouapp.com/>)
and am totally hooked. Now, almost everything I write, I write in Markdown.

If you are looking for a Markdown editor for the Mac, check out Mou.

Disclaimer - I am in no way affiliated with the tool or it's developer. Just a
happy user :)

~~~
james4k
Also worth checking out <http://www.iawriter.com/>

It isn't free, but its design is phenomenal.

Edit: Just noticed Mou won't be free after beta. Will be interesting to see
how the prices compare.

~~~
rdl
iCloud integration between iPad and mac app makes iawriter pretty awesome for
me.

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anusinha
In any conversation about Markdown, I think it's appropriate to mention
Textile [1] as well. Textile is fairly similar, intended to fulfill the same
niche of markup with slightly different syntax. Personally, I prefer textile
because I think it's a bit more expressive, though I'd rather be writing
LaTeX...

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textile_%28markup_language%29>

~~~
bradleyland
Textile is a different beast. Unprocessed Markdown is meant to be human
consumable, not just human readable. Specifically, you should be able to send
a raw Markdown file to someone who doesn't know what Markdown is, and it
should still be pleasant to read for that person.

Textile uses easy to read syntax, but line prefixes like 'h1.' leak the HTML
intentions to the reader. That's not to say textile doesn't have it's uses
though. Textile solves problems that Markdown doesn't even address, even in
its extended forms. For example, Textile allows you to apply span tags (with
class name) using Textile syntax. Markdown requires you to write actual HTML.

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AncientPC
If you use vim as your primary Markdown editor, I'd suggest plasticboy's
markdown plugin: <https://github.com/plasticboy/vim-markdown>

I was using vim's default syntax highlighter for Markdown and ran into
highlighting issues with unclosed single quotes.

Since a lot of Markdown files use .md instead of .markdown, I'd also suggest
adding the file `~/.vim/ftplugin/modula2.vim` containing:

    
    
        setlocal filetype=mkd

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Smudge
Top reason for me: _separation of presentation and content_

Which, when actually practiced, is the biggest advantage raw HTML offers over
anything WYSIWYG. Except with Markdown I don't even have to write out the
HTML, and that practice of only caring about content (and addressing
presentation later using styling rules) is naturally enforced by the
beautifully limited syntax Markdown offers.

~~~
melvinram
Users don't care about separation of presentation and content. They care about
how easy it is to use.

~~~
Smudge
True. But just because I am capable of using HTML doesn't preclude me from
being a Markdown user too. A different kind of user, but a user nonetheless.

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voidfiles
I think markdown could be the lingua franca of publishers. HTML would be the
best, but it's a bit to specialized. Where as markdown walks the line of being
specialized yet easy enough to learn that it won't scare away brand new users.
I mean markdown can interpret plain text into something useful. If enough non-
technical sites adopted markdown, front and center, it could spread widely.

~~~
spatten
We've found that it works quite well for us on Leanpub, and you're right that
the learning curve doesn't seem to be too steep for new writers.

We need to be a bit better at this, but starting off with saying

"# Chapter" makes a new chapter

"## Section" starts a new section

 _this is italic_ and _this is bold_.

[this is a link](<http://example.com>)

gets you 90% of what you need to write a book, and the other 10% is not much
harder.

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zht
I dislike the fact that in order insert a code block I have to smash my space
bar 4 times for each line.

~~~
read_wharf
Then don't do that.

Edit your code block over at the left margin as you would normally edit any
code. Then do a block insert of 4 spaces down the left side of your code
block. That's how I do it.

    
    
        line of code
        line of code
            indented line of code
        line of code
    

In vim, after editing your code like you usually would:

    
    
        Go to the front of the top line,
        Ctrl-V to enter visual block mode (Ctrl-Q on windows),
        jjj to the bottom line,
        I (capital I) to insert at the front,
        space space space space,
        escape.
    

I did exactly that to create the above two blocks.

~~~
pge
in vim, you can also use ">>" command which indents a line. if you use python,
your vim is probably already set up to indent four spaces, so the above can be
done with "4>>" (=indent next four lines)

~~~
zecho
One of the few times I find myself in visual mode is when I'm indenting lines.
v{motion}>> or <<. Super useful.

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rosstafarian
I just discovered "Nocs"[1] for the iPad/iPhone, very nice markdown editor
with drop box support. It's free and seems to work better than some of the
stuff I've paid for.

[1] <http://www.wisd.com/nocs/>

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harbud
Nothing beats Org (<http://orgmode.org>) for me. But sadly outside of Emacs
(and Vim) it's virtually unknown to the rest of the world.

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melvinram
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
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
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.

------
naner
It takes less time to "learn" markdown than it does to read this blog post.

~~~
melvinram
It takes more time to find + fix problems that your users will have and email
your support team about than it taks to read the blog post.

