
The Markdown Mark by Dustin Curtis - johns
http://dcurt.is/the-markdown-mark
======
potch
Took a crack at making a CSS version:

<http://potch.me/markdown-mark.html>

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lisper
Works in firefox, but it's broken in Safari and Chrome

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potch
missed a negative sign- all better!

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alanh
Interesting that we could see a unified Markdown mark long before we can ever
hope to see a unified Markdown specification.

(Most implementors feel Markdown could use some expansion — see MultiMarkDown,
PHP Markdown Extra, Python Markdown — but Gruber is having none of it and
stopped moderating the group, and no consensus has been reached about how to
unify the various flavors, except that it can’t be done without significant
time investment and a rough consensus.)

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jacobolus
Looks like the TextMate 1 document icon for Markdown! :-)
<http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/site/tm-icon-selection.png>

At some point several years ago, I was naming all my markdown files like
foo.m↓, but after a while I decided that foo.mdown probably plays nicer w/
typical software. :-)

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SeoxyS
It's also similar to the solution I went with for the icon of my markdown
editor, Macchiato:

<http://getmacchiato.com/>

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MattBearman
I actually much prefer your logo, the arrow being part of the 'M' is (for me)
more aseptically pleasing, too bad you didn't put yours forward as universal
mark down symbol.

Edit: Having said that, I think Dustin's is probably easier to understand
without explanation.

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jenius
Awesome idea, but this one is better:
<http://dribbble.com/shots/424152-Markdown>

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ugh
It just looks like an arrow pointing down. Seems to general to me.

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dgant
The top of the arrow is an M.

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ugh
I get that. Doesn't change a thing: It looks just like an arrow if you are not
looking for the M. It’s cute, doesn’t help, though.

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efsavage
It feels like an action button, like I'm going to download something.
Something like <http://imgur.com/T2muH> seems simpler (forgive the crude 2
minute execution)

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jacobr
For README's :)

    
    
          _ _ 
         | V | ||
         |_v_| \/
         MARKDOWN

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ehsanu1
Or maybe just: M↓

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dchest
Better: Markdown.

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mhansen
Better: name the file README.md

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dchest
Nice one. But we're I think we're talking about referring to Markdown from
README (e.g. "our comments system supports Markdown"), not that the content of
README is written in Markdown.

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troels
That's very nice. I do wonder if the downward pointing arrow might cause some
confusion, since it could be misinterpreted as meaning "download".

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mcav
There's been some talk recently about somewhat ridiculous symbols representing
attribution. Sometimes, a good icon or symbol works really well; other times
less so. I think this is a nice idea and looks well-executed.

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obtu
I don't think a concise symbol is needed. A Markdown area, when activated,
should have some sort of sidebar hint to give basic examples of the syntax,
and that takes enough space that Markdown can be used as a word. Recognition
might be speedier for the spelled-out word, too. Before the user decides to
input something, advertising Markdown support isn't very important.

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potch
He's very particular about how this symbol should and shouldn't be displayed.
Don't think that's a bad thing, but it's interesting.

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DHowett
I'd say he's almost too particular for an M with a down arrow in a rounded
rectangle.

However, what's the corner radius? What's the width of the stroke on the M?
The depth of the point of the arrow or the width of its sweep?

It seems like he's got the spacing and sizing of line-width elements specified
to a 'T' (or an 'X' as the case may be), but can we typeset the M in, say,
Times? Can the down arrow be a chevron instead?

Particular, but if he's going for particular he's taking it nearly far enough.
:P

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unwind
Thanks, I was confused by the strange mix of very clear specs and no specs
while referencing the absent specs, too.

Bullet points 1 and 2, for instance:

    
    
        1. Do not change the aspect ratio of the rounded box enclosure. 
        2. Do not change the border radius of the rounded box enclosure.
    

Neither of these properties were defined as far as I could see. Perhaps it's
one of those cases where you're expected to "see" it from the graphics; I
typically don't operate well that way. :)

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adavies42
also there's at least two more measurements missing from the spec graphic--the
distance between the M and the arrow and the distance between the arrow and
the right edge. i assume those are both X, but it doesn't actually say....

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cobychapple
It's hard to get a clearer, simpler symbol than that, and it's the creation of
an 'open' symbol like this that I predict will play a big role in driving
adoption of the Markdown format on a wider scale than is seen today.

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icebraining
I propose this unicode version:【M↓】(graphics aren't always appropriate)

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pronoiac
Those brackets render fine on Mobile Safari, but not on Firefox on my desktop.

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icebraining
It's because your desktop system lacks an appropriate font.

The GNU Unifont, which is GPL licensed, support all the basic unicode
characters (that's 65,536 characters!) and can be downloaded from here:
<http://unifoundry.com/unifont.html>

If you use Debian (and possibly in other Linux distros), you can just install
the ttf-unifont package.

~~~
masukomi
While this may be true, people can't be expected to go tracking down and
installing a font just to see the characters that don't happen to be rendering
in your site / app. Another solution is required, such as normal ascii
brackets.

~~~
icebraining
Or you can use webfonts.

In any case, I agree, but the proper solution should be for OSs to come with
fonts to cover that Unicode spectrum. It eliminates much of the utility of
having Unicode in the first place if you can't safely use them.

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_frog
This would be really great as an addition to the icons that already ship with
Twitter Bootstrap, something like that would really speed up the adoption of
this as a standard.

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ajhit406
I guess design things happen on dribbble before HN.

<http://dribbble.com/shots/423934-This-Means-Markdown>

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dcurtis
In fact, I only made this a more serious project because of the response I
received on Dribbble.

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Mjux
Project looks really exciting, Dcurtis.

My question is on the adoption on text based interfaces, like HN input. Using
html entities &hellip; ...

Html entities save a better explicit defination in web. Image rendering will
get you there, building another context will definitely ease adoption. What do
you think?

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perlgeek
If anybody else had trouble finding the license, it's at
<https://github.com/dcurtis/markdown-mark/blob/master/LICENSE> (as dcurtis has
been kind enough to tell me on twitter).

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vilius
If this is an icon for Markdown, then I suppose this must be an icon for
Markup: <http://cl.ly/1I0N0s2a0d3x0D1k0523>

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JBiserkov
:-D

I guess all jokes eventually come around.

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gurraman
I saw this on Dribbble a few weeks ago:

<http://dribbble.com/shots/423934-This-Means-Markdown>

Another nice one:

<http://dribbble.com/shots/424152-Markdown>

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tzaman
The second one is much nicer than Dustin's

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dcurtis
At first glance, the second one might appear to be a better mark. However, if
you don't know what it stands for, or that the top part of it is an M, the
graphic is just an ordinary arrow. It doesn't accomplish the primary goal of
the design.

It definitely looks nice, though.

~~~
nhebb
I didn't even notice that the top formed an M until you mentioned it, so there
you go.

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antidaily
Serious question - do a lot of apps still use markdown? Haven't encountered it
in a while.

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Steveism
I've noticed quite a few Mac and iOS apps using Markdown lately. If anything
it seems to be gaining adoption. Of course this isn't based on any actual data
just my own observations. Perhaps a Windows user can chime in and comment
about it's growth from their perspective.

I'd love to see it being used in more blog commenting systems.

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est
Now imagine a fancy logo for HTM↑

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ms123
Perfect. What is there more to say, really? You made the world a little better
today.

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nchlswu
Is the "something using Markdown" Dustin's blogging engine?

Anyways, it's great to see this come from concept (Dribble) to a detailed
mark/brand. What other languages have their own mark?

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chalst
I am having trouble with the specification: it is defined in terms of "the M
glyph", but a glyph is not a graphic. Does the specification fix a particular
font?

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dcurtis
The M icon in the Markdown Mark was created out of a modified version of the M
from Gill Sans Bold (you probably should not try to recreate the mark using
Gill Sans because of the modifications to the crotch on the M).

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chalst
Thanks. I'd like to approximate this mark using Metapost.

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dcurtis
That would be very cool. If you do, please add it to the repository and submit
a pull request.

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adambyrtek
Interestingly, this resembles the Gmail logo to me.

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Kilimanjaro
A slight mod from Nicola Armellini's

<http://i.imgur.com/pQzzk.png>

Thought it would look better like a button or badge.

