Should the Scratch forums switch to using Markdown?

ScratchMan544

# Should the Scratch forums switch to using Markdown? #

Of course. *Everything* should switch to using Markdown.

Markdown is:
* Easy to learn
* Easy to read
* Parses fast, so you can have live previews of your post
* A nice standard for everything. SE and Github both use Markdown

What's your opinion?

BookOwl

While I think that Markdown is far better than BBCode, I doubt that you will be able to convince all the other forum posters that they should learn Markdown and use it instead.

-stache-

BookOwl wrote:
While I think that Markdown is far better than BBCode, I doubt that you will be able to convince all the other forum posters that they should learn Markdown and use it instead.

Make the parser try to parse markdown, and if it fails, or sees anything with , it switches to BBCode?

ScratchMan544

-stache- wrote:
Make the parser try to parse markdown, and if it fails, or sees anything with , it switches to BBCode?

I feel that it's generally not a good idea for a parser to try to figure out what you want. Maybe you could add a separate tab for Markdown.
Honestly, I bet people would be willing to switch to Markdown given the choice, and it's easier to learn and remember than BBCode. You don't need all the icons in the top when you're writing your post, because in MD they're helpful but not necessary.

Last edited by ScratchMan544 (Dec. 3, 2016 00:50:28)

Dylan5797

-stache- wrote:
BookOwl wrote:
While I think that Markdown is far better than BBCode, I doubt that you will be able to convince all the other forum posters that they should learn Markdown and use it instead.
Make the parser try to parse markdown, and if it fails, or sees anything with , it switches to BBCode?

Maybe a radio button at the bottom of the post box?

ScratchMan544

Hmm… Maybe somebody should write a userscript for this?

Dylan5797

ScratchMan544 wrote:
Hmm… Maybe somebody should write a userscript for this?

Would it convert the post to an image?

MD can't be completely replicated with BBCode

Last edited by Dylan5797 (Dec. 3, 2016 05:17:50)

jokebookservice1

Dylan5797 wrote:
ScratchMan544 wrote:
Hmm… Maybe somebody should write a userscript for this?
Would it convert the post to an image?

MD can't be completely replicated with BBCode

But it could be roughly replicated as BBCode. I'm going to try and do this.

-Io-

ScratchMan544 wrote:
Hmm… Maybe somebody should write a userscript for this?

I tried and imma save you some time. Try searching for something like:

=markdown

cuz all the options I tried didn't want to work.

[color=markdown][/color] seemed promising until the smart quotes nation attacked code blocks.
Tried [color=markdown][code][/code][/color] but the color tag gets split where the code block goes.
[quote=markdown][code][/code][/quote] seemed promising too until I saw that the <blockquote>s it produces don't have any attributes I can used for getting it.

For the last 2 I could've tried matching for something like <p class=“bb-quote-author”>markdown wrote:</p><div class=“code”>((\s|\S)*)</div> but I don't like doing that.

edit: btw, this is if you want pure Markdown that the userscript renders when it finds it in the page and not a bad BBCode replication of it.

Last edited by -Io- (Dec. 3, 2016 18:56:12)

_nix

Since people have started writing userscripts apparently, please don't forget ```language syntax

```js
console.log('JavaScript!')
```

I don't think it's official but it's really handy. (The other syntax is to have code indented by four spaces, which looks nice written I guess, but if you don't have an auto-indenter it's super annoying to type. Plus you can't specify the code language that way.)

__init__

It would break everything. Even if the existing BBCode was converted to Markdown, it would break all the hacky stuff people have done to work around BBCode glitches ([[]stuff like this] and stuff).

And besides, there's not really a good reason to.

ScratchMan544

Maybe the userscript would just add a button next to the submit button that would parse your post as MD and convert it to BBCode.

IcyCoder

Switching to markdown will take a lot of scratches that do not use GitHub a learning curve (not a large one but a learning curve).

But shouldn't this go in suggestions?

jokebookservice1

IcyCoder wrote:
Switching to markdown will take a lot of scratches that do not use GitHub a learning curve (not a large one but a learning curve).

But shouldn't this go in suggestions?

I think it should be moved there after a bit of advanced discussion first.

P.S. As well as GitHub, other services exist that use MD

IcyCoder

jokebookservice1 wrote:
IcyCoder wrote:
Switching to markdown will take a lot of scratches that do not use GitHub a learning curve (not a large one but a learning curve).

But shouldn't this go in suggestions?
I think it should be moved there after a bit of advanced discussion first.

P.S. As well as GitHub, other services exist that use MD

Well it is now in the suggestions forum

ScratchMan544

IcyCoder wrote:
Switching to markdown will take a lot of scratches that do not use GitHub a learning curve (not a large one but a learning curve).

What I've been suggesting is that we have a separate tab for MD. I'm not sure whether the Scratch servers store the HTML generated by the BBCode on the server or store the BBCode itself (Although I suspect the latter.) That means that we'll either have the MD being converted to HTML (Which is fine) or it would be converted to BBCode (Which might cause some problems).

Digital_Gaming

ScratchMan544 wrote:
# Should the Scratch forums switch to using Markdown? #

Of course. *Everything* should switch to using Markdown.

Markdown is:
* Easy to learn
* Easy to read
* Parses fast, so you can have live previews of your post
* A nice standard for everything. SE and Github both use Markdown

What's your opinion?

I'm not sure what markdown is. No support until some explains it.

TheMonsterOfTheDeep

Eh… I honestly like BBCode more. It's simpler, at least in my opinion.

However, my personal opinion really doesn't really matter - the majority preference is what matters. Are there any statistics on what people would prefer? I'm guessing most people would prefer Markdown.

ScratchMan544

Digital_Gaming wrote:
ScratchMan544 wrote:
# Should the Scratch forums switch to using Markdown? #

Of course. *Everything* should switch to using Markdown.

Markdown is:
* Easy to learn
* Easy to read
* Parses fast, so you can have live previews of your post
* A nice standard for everything. SE and Github both use Markdown

What's your opinion?
I'm not sure what markdown is. No support until some explains it.

It's a markup language designed to be very easy to read and write. It's used in places like Github, Stack Exchange, Reddit, etc.

For example, in BBCode you might do this:

[b]Header[/b]

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla condimentum in lacus
quis placerat. Aliquam erat volutpat. Praesent vitae turpis ut orci pharetra ultrices.
Etiam hendrerit vitae dui quis venenatis. Nulla et arcu laoreet, volutpat elit sed, pulvinar
ex. Suspendisse euismod nunc tortor, tincidunt tempor magna fringilla a. Suspendisse
convallis ligula ac ex semper tincidunt. Quisque eget ornare ante, quis fermentum risus.

[code]
// Snippet of Java code
System.out.print("Hi\n");
[/code]

In MD you'd do this:

# Header #

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla condimentum in lacus
quis placerat. Aliquam erat volutpat. Praesent vitae turpis ut orci pharetra ultrices.
Etiam hendrerit vitae dui quis venenatis. Nulla et arcu laoreet, volutpat elit sed, pulvinar
ex. Suspendisse euismod nunc tortor, tincidunt tempor magna fringilla a. Suspendisse
convallis ligula ac ex semper tincidunt. Quisque eget ornare ante, quis fermentum risus.

    // snippet of Java code
    System.out.print("Hi\n");

Last edited by ScratchMan544 (Dec. 8, 2016 05:10:26)

Digital_Gaming

ScratchMan544 wrote:
Digital_Gaming wrote:
ScratchMan544 wrote:
# Should the Scratch forums switch to using Markdown? #

Of course. *Everything* should switch to using Markdown.

Markdown is:
* Easy to learn
* Easy to read
* Parses fast, so you can have live previews of your post
* A nice standard for everything. SE and Github both use Markdown

What's your opinion?
I'm not sure what markdown is. No support until some explains it.

It's a markup language designed to be very easy to read and write. It's used in places like Github, Stack Exchange, Reddit, etc.

For example, in BBCode you might do this:
[b]Header[/b]

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla condimentum in lacus
quis placerat. Aliquam erat volutpat. Praesent vitae turpis ut orci pharetra ultrices.
Etiam hendrerit vitae dui quis venenatis. Nulla et arcu laoreet, volutpat elit sed, pulvinar
ex. Suspendisse euismod nunc tortor, tincidunt tempor magna fringilla a. Suspendisse
convallis ligula ac ex semper tincidunt. Quisque eget ornare ante, quis fermentum risus.

[code]
// Snippet of Java code
System.out.print("Hi\n");
[/code]
In MD you'd do this:
# Header #

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla condimentum in lacus
quis placerat. Aliquam erat volutpat. Praesent vitae turpis ut orci pharetra ultrices.
Etiam hendrerit vitae dui quis venenatis. Nulla et arcu laoreet, volutpat elit sed, pulvinar
ex. Suspendisse euismod nunc tortor, tincidunt tempor magna fringilla a. Suspendisse
convallis ligula ac ex semper tincidunt. Quisque eget ornare ante, quis fermentum risus.

    // snippet of Java code
    System.out.print("Hi\n");

Oh. Not sure if this wold have a big effect semi-support

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