Re: [EXTERNAL] Question about Codimd for w.g. minutes

[Bob Hinden <[e-mail]>]

Barbara,

> On Jul 29, 2021, at 1:13 PM, STARK, BARBARA H <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>>> Interesting. I think CodiMD is rendering incorrectly, because markdown
>> intentionally ignores single newlines: if CodiMD wants a line break, it should
>> insert *two* newlines (a paragraph break) or two spaces at the end of a line
>> (line break) to get that effect. I would avoid the issue entirely by using bullets to
>> delineate elements.
>> 
>> That is a well-known problem with markdown:
>> Implementations differ in how "hard" newlines are.
>> (There is also a difference on where a bullet is recognized after a paragraph.)
>> 
>> CodiMD's markdown is very friendly to the online notes crowd.
>> Github flavored markdown (GFM) was until they reverted to Gruber's definition
>> of what a newline means.
>> Most other markdown implementations have the Gruber-like soft newlines and
>> "lazy" syntax that gives even less notice to newlines.
>> 
>> That's a bummer, indeed.
>> I'm not aware of a tool that converts hard-newline markdown like CodiMD's to
>> soft-newline ones (well, maybe kramdown can do that in its GFM mode; need to
>> check).
> 
> Right, CodiMD render markdown *differently* than datatracker. My strategy is to download the markdown to an Ubuntu laptop and edit using the Ubuntu Text Editor. I can also copy/paste from CodiMD into Text Editor. Text Editor is fabulous in its ability to recognize markdown and save as markdown.
> 
> The main edit I do is to put blank lines between all paragraphs. Then I upload the .md file to datatracker.
> 
> Really, I suspect at least one of your 2 notetakers was either too lazy to insert those extra blank lines while typing or didn't want to impact the experience of people who might be following the discussion using the rendered CodiMD notes (because the additional blank lines create blank lines in the CodiMD rendering). I had an eerily similar experience with DNSSD WG. But adding those blank lines before uploading to datatracker is simple -- if using the Ubuntu Text Editor. There may be other such magical editors, but I don't know about them.

That about what I ended up doing too.  A little painful, but not too bad.

Bob



> Barbara
>