nick said:> http://nickgravgaard.com/elastictabstops/exactly. thanks for writing it up, nick. the only thing i'd add is the notion that tables should be copyfit to the viewport. if the viewport gives you plenty of room, give the columns some breathing space. if not, tighten them as much as needed. ***> http://readown.googlecode.com/cool. now how about an authoring-tool? bbedit? um, no thanks. i never understood the appeal of a text-editor with no support for styled text. _simpletext_ had styled text! sorry, if you don't do styled text, you do suck. i use tex-edit, from tom bender. fantastic. doesn't just _support_ styled text, but also lets you _do_searches_ with specific styles. and it costs $15, with free updates for life. that even gets you the fucking source code. heck, i'm gonna send tom $15 more today, because that guy is an asset to the world... i'll take another look at mars-edit as well... *** and while i'm here causing a fuss again, let me ask the big questions once again: who's gonna write the browser plug-in? and who's gonna get markdown bundled right into the very _guts_ of the browser? i want to _serve_ markdown files per se, and avoid the stupid .html middleman... the world is full of technical dummies who will kiss the feet of the person who gives them the means to return to "the old days" when .html was a simple thing to create... today's xhtml/css mess is one sick joke that the technoids pulled on the public to reassert the role of "required experts". it's time to disintermediate them again... that's my opinion, and i'm stickin' to it... *** david said:> The? comment that started this sub-thread > was a throwaway line, reallyok, sorry i made even a small deal about it. but still, now you've got my curiosity going... while granting anyone and everyone my _full_ permission to use _whatever_ font they prefer, even if someone else thinks that it might not be the best tool for the job, i am wondering about the "expectation" markdown brings to the table. (ha, look, i made a little pun, to be lighthearted.) gruber, if you're reading, would you answer this: do you use a monospaced font to write your blog? or to write _anything_ that you do with markdown? -bowerbird ************** A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1218822736x1201267884/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Fwww.freecreditreport.com%2Fpm%2Fdefault.aspx%3Fsc%3D668072%26hmpgID %3D62%26bcd%3DfebemailfooterNO62) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/attachments/20090226/6e0f3300/attachment.html>
i said:> gruber, if you're reading, would you answer this: > do you use a monospaced font to write your blog? > or to write _anything_ that you do with markdownends up gruber mentioned this just recently on his blog:> (Preemptively answering the inevitable question: > I use Monaco 10 for text documents, > but Consolas 12 for shell worksheets.) > http://daringfireball.net/linked/2008/12/15/bbedit-91so david, your supposition on the "expectation" of markdown -- at least as conceived by gruber -- was entirely correct, and i have to admit that i was wrong. not the first time, not the last. :+) -bowerbird ************** A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1218822736x1201267884/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Fwww.freecreditreport.com%2Fpm%2Fdefault.aspx%3Fsc%3D668072%26hmpgID %3D62%26bcd%3DfebemailfooterNO62) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/attachments/20090227/917fc0f8/attachment-0001.htm>
G'day Nice rant. I sympathize. Ain't going to happen. In a nut shell, you're proposing that browsers interpret a whole new language. A simpler one than html, but non-the-less a new language. That new language is weak compared to html, in the sense that by itself it can't say, "Float this picture on the right side, resize it to 40% of the column width, put this line on top as the title, put these two paragraphs underneath it as the caption, and put a hairline border around the entire thing." I'll point out that RTF is far richer than markdown, RTF editors are simple for the masses to use, but RTF has not caught on as a browser presentation format. Nor has SVG for graphics, although it would allow you to do things that html can't. Nor has Math ML despite there being no good way to present mathematics in a browser. Markdown allows people to write without worrying about layout. Even this table stuff is a bit over the top, but tables in the day of typewriters were always a pain. (I'm dating myself...) I suspect that the Babylonian scribes cursed tables in their time. I agree that there is a lack of good simple easy ways to make content for an entire site that doesn't get you wrapped up in endless fiddling with the navigation links, and the presentation, AND is easy for a non-tech to use. There are a raft of CMS systems out there. None are trivial to set up for a non-technical person. And for that non-tech to *change* the site style is a very metal container of bass bait. At present Markdown fills a gap, and gives us a middle ground between working with straight html with paired tags for every sneeze, and products like dreamweaver with their wysiwyg view, but producing bloated non-standard html that is hard to integrate into any but a static site. By the way: If you succeed in your project how would like to take on the next biggie: Regularize English spelling? -- Sherwood Botsford Sherwood's Forests Warburg, Alberta T0C 2T0 http://www.sherwoods-forests.com 780-848-2548
sherwood said:> Nice rant.um... thanks... i guess... although i consider a "rant" to be an emotional outburst, and i save my emotions for my poetry, and try to be _rational_ on listserves...> I sympathize.? Ain't going to happen.why not?> you're proposing that browsers > interpret a whole new language.?not really. not at all. they receive the .markdown that's served, convert it to the .html they expect, and then process that .html normally and display it... thus, the only added step is the _conversion_, and we know that that involves <100k of code, and can be accomplished in mere milliseconds. 100k of code in the bloatware that is a modern browser is next to nothing. and the milliseconds are a tremendous bargain offset by all the human _hours_ that'll be saved. the _bureaucracy_ of browser buy-in might be difficult to negotiate -- which is why i advocate making a plug-in -- but the tech part isn't hard. a plug-in would be enough to get a ball rolling... i'm convinced that millions of regular users would rather serve markdown (or another light markup) instead of .html, if they actually had the _choice_... and if millions of people started serving markdown, the browser-makers would eventually pay attention. -bowerbird p.s. the blogging programs might be a good place to get a ball rolling as well. if they gave notice that they wanna serve markdown, it might get attention. ************** A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1218822736x1201267884/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Fwww.freecreditreport.com%2Fpm%2Fdefault.aspx%3Fsc%3D668072%26hmpgID %3D62%26bcd%3DfebemailfooterNO62) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/attachments/20090227/6d2b7f52/attachment.htm>