Markdown Discuss - May 2006 - Macros?

Is there any way to do macros in Markdown?
Or do you have any other suggestions?

I'm thinking of a few uses.
One is to read back system stuff that might be global or session settings.

Example
         Tell the user where they are coming from, time etc


    You are  %%USERNAME%%
    Logged in at %%LOGINTIME%%

    Your browser is %%HTTP{"User-Agent"}%%
    You are accessing from %%REMOTE_ADDR%%:%%REMOTE_PORT%%

    The time is now  %%TIME(timezone=%%USER{%%TZ%%}%%,
fmt="HH:MM:SS")%%

The HTTP is the hash of all headers
The USER is the hash of all user parameters ... name timezone etc ...
You get the idea ...

Example:
   I have support for 'twisies' in javascript but want to activate them
   in the page body

   a) Show/hide information

        Lead in text
%TWISTYSHOW{id="sectionone" mode="div"
           link=" <input type=\"button\" value=\"Click
here to view\">"
           }%%
%%TWISTYHIDE{id="sectionone" mode="div"
           link=" <input type=\"button\" value=\"Click
here to hide\">"
           }%%
%TWISTYTOGGLE{id="sectionone" mode="div"}%

            Text here gets toggled

%%ENDTWISTYTOGGLE%%

Expands to ..

<span id="sectiononeshow" class="twistyMakeOpaque">
   <a href="#" class="twistyTrigger">
   <span class="LinkLabel">
     <input type="button" value="Click here to view">
</span></a></span> <span id="sectiononehide"
class="twistyTransparent
twistyMakeOpaque">
    <a href="#" class="twistyTrigger">
    <span class="LinkLabel">
     <input type="button" value="Click here to hide">
</span></a></span>
<p />
<div id="sectioonetoggle" class="twistyMakeHidden">

            Text here gets toggled
</div>

A null "hide" button just unfurls the hidden text.
The "id" is so you can stack/nest them.
--------------------------

Suggestions?  Ideas?


/anton

* Anton J Aylward <aja@si.on.ca> [2006-05-02
19:35]:
> Is there any way to do macros in Markdown? Or do you have any
> other suggestions?
You can hack this on top of Markdown as it is, as long as you
don?t need to nest macros inside links. Then you can write this:
>     You are  %%USERNAME%%
>     Logged in at %%LOGINTIME%%
> 
>     Your browser is %%HTTP{"User-Agent"}%%
>     You are accessing from %%REMOTE_ADDR%%:%%REMOTE_PORT%%
> 
>     The time is now  %%TIME(timezone=%%USER{%%TZ%%}%%,
fmt="HH:MM:SS")%%
like this:

    You are [USERNAME](macro:)
    Logged in at [LOGINTIME](macro:)

    Your browser is [HTTP{"User-Agent"}](macro:)
    You are accessing from [REMOTE_ADDR](macro:):[REMOTE_PORT](macro:)

    The time is now [TIME(timezone=USER{TZ},fmt="HH:MM:SS")](macro:)

Markdown makes this out of it:

    <p>You are <a href="macro:">USERNAME</a>
    Logged in at <a href="macro:">LOGINTIME</a></p>

    <p>Your browser is <a
href="macro:">HTTP{?User-Agent?}</a>
    You are accessing from <a
href="macro:">REMOTE<em>ADDR</a>:<a
href="macro:">REMOTE</em>PORT</a></p>

    <p>The time is now <a
href="macro:">TIME(timezone=USER{TZ},fmt=?HH:MM:SS?)</a></p>

Then you can you go in there and replace `<a>` tags with a `href`
of `macro:` by the result of evaluating their textual content.

Hmm, you?d have to be careful about your underscores and
asterisks; not to mention there?s a bug there in Markdown?

Regards,
-- 
Aristotle Pagaltzis // <http://plasmasturm.org/>