HN Gopher Feed (2017-11-07) - page 1 of 10 ___________________________________________________________________
Markdown Here - Write email in Markdown
124 points by duck
http://markdown-here.com/index.html___________________________________________________________________
dfox - 3 hours ago
I've found out that even business types can understand text/plain
emails with markdown-style formatting, so what exactly is the
usecase for this?
matthberg - 3 hours ago
While \this\ is understandable, it is a lot less professional
than italic text. It's all about presentation, and this is a
shortcut to a better presentation with the same amount of effort.
dfox - 3 hours ago
That probably depends on whether you want to convey meaning by
formatting of free flowing text. Professional way to do that is
to highlight (highlight, not make bold, italics or whatever)
the parts of your email that constitute the tl;dr part, even
more professional is to simply write your email such that it's
main point is repeated in first and/or last paragraph.
bphogan - 3 hours ago
Because you can use this plugin for more than just emails. I've
used this in a lot of backend systems that support rich-text
interfaces but don[t support markdown.
adam-p - 1 hours ago
I'm the author of Markdown Here. And surprised to open HN and see
it on the first page! I can answer any questions (although it's
really a straightforward tool -- it does what it says on the box).
pitaj - 25 minutes ago
Why did you use marked instead of markdown-it or another
CommonMark-compatible parser? Have you thought about switching to
a library which supports more features?
hayd - 1 hours ago
Is there a way to use just the markdown -> html so that it can be
used for automated sending e.g. via mandrill/sparkpost?It looks
pretty!
masukomi - 1 hours ago
that... just... that doesn't make sense. why would you use a
plugin that converts markdown to html in browser windows to do
automated sending. There have been command line tools to
convert markdown to html since the beginning (literally, first
implementation by gruber). Pandoc is probably the go-to one
these days but yeah, that's just.... not the right tool for the
job.
[deleted]
sturmen - 1 hours ago
Hi Adam! I installed Markdown Here from the Chrome Web Store, and
I noticed it installed 2.12.0. However, it looks like you
released 2.13.1 on GitHub. Should I be installing from GitHub?
zenojevski - 2 hours ago
I can't praise MailMate[1] enough here: A lean, no-fuss mac email
client with first-party support for Markdown (with syntax
highlighting!), and plenty of other goodies.Cherry on top, its
developer is very active, and keeps a regularly-updated blog[2],
talking about email server quirks and many other interesting
technical bits.Note that I'm not in any way affiliated with the
software ? just a very happy customer.[1]: https://freron.com[2]:
https://blog.freron.com
fny - 1 hours ago
Cheers to Adam. I've been using the for years--since time the
extension was called "Markdown Anywhere" and had a purple butterfly
as the logo and mascot!My use cases:- Sending code, diffs, and
equations in emails- Copy/paste from other markdown docs- Dodging
crappy WYSIWGs on some sites
aendruk - 28 minutes ago
Are there any mail clients that can send with Content-Type:
text/markdown?
fsargent - 3 hours ago
Is it really easier to use markdown than bolding things using a
keyboard shortcut?And tables are downright awful in markdown (or
anything barring a full spreadsheet editor). When would you want to
do this by hand?
gknoy - 2 hours ago
I've used it for general composition (headings, bold text, etc),
but its killer feature is for when you want to include a block of
highlighted code. Markdown Here has fantastic support for GFM
fenced code blocks.I wish I could use it in Jira. :-(
dtolb - 2 hours ago
I ran into the same issue and found
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/markdown-to-
jira/j...That converts markdown to Jira-markdown and back
again. It's been fantastic for me.
dredmorbius - 2 hours ago
Markdown tables are reasonably lightweight and are very easy to
generate with regex substitution off a delimited datastream.
Say, tabs: s/^/| /; s/\t/ | /; s/^/ |/ Add your header and
alignment block and you're set.
anoother - 2 hours ago
I find tables far easier in md than anywhere else. You can
distill them down to: Head | Head ---|--- Row | row
Row | row Etc.
JoshTriplett - 3 hours ago
> Is it really easier to use markdown than bolding things using a
keyboard shortcut?Yes, it absolutely is easier to type a few
asterisks in running text rather than selecting text, hitting a
keyboard shortcut or clicking a button, and then going back to
typing more text.
colanderman - 2 hours ago
Most rich text editors allow bolding running text. "Ctrl+B"
vs. "shift-8" are equal.(Most rich text editors are poorly
implemented and suffer from hidden state, but that's a separate
problem.)
[deleted]
gt_ - 2 hours ago
In my opinion, it is about the same, maybe easier to not use
markdown. If we count keystrokes, it?s less.If already typed,
it?s less keystrokes to select with Shift+Ctrl then press
Ctrl+B.If it?s not typed, it?s less keystrokes to Ctrl+B at he
start and end.For italics, the keystrokes are about the same
with and without markdown.
JoshTriplett - 2 hours ago
Perfectly reasonable to have both available: type markdown
along the way, map keyboard shortcuts to insert the
appropriate formatting characters whether used statefully or
with text selected.
johnchristopher - 1 hours ago
I seem to remember that typora works that way.
johnchristopher - 1 hours ago
Hmmm. To be fair you could also use ctrl+b instead of the
markdown sequence.
conductr - 1 hours ago
That's an interesting flow but I couldn't imagine typing like
that, formatting while I typed would totally interrupt the
thought process/message I'm trying to get out.My flow is to
type first just to get the thoughts out then I format last
while I proofread.
myst - 2 hours ago
What's the point? My plain-text emails are already awesome.
ductionist - 2 hours ago
I've been using this for a few years now, mainly with FastMail and
Gmail. I can't live without it, especially for sending emails with
documentation, technical instructions, usernames, etc. to
customers.
cheez - 1 hours ago
Doesn't seem to work with fastmail
amadeusw - 1 hours ago
I'd like to use it with fastmail in firefox
fovc - 51 minutes ago
If anyone has set something like this up with emacs, would love to
hear about it. I'm currently using org-mime, but would prefer to
use markdownEdit: 30 seconds of searching led me to here:
http://tess.oconnor.cx/2008/01/html-email-composition-in-ema...
kleiba - 46 minutes ago
Just curious: why do you prefer markdown over org?
matthberg - 3 hours ago
This looks like a fun TodoMVC equivalent for testing addons, I
think I might try to roll my own!
madmax108 - 2 hours ago
I absolutely love this extension and it's been a stable part of my
workflow for the last 2 years or so.For people who are asking what
the use case for this is have clearly never tried sending chunks
of code over email (especially a auto-word-wrapping HTML client
like Gmail). Markdown Here allows me to create beautifully
formatted code blocks which are readily shared with the rest of the
team and beyond (Even non-Engg love reading well formatted blocks
of markdown).My workflow for a lot of mails sent out to other teams
involves the following template:----Hey there! I ran into this
error while running XYZ service. The error seems to be with a
background sync script that is failing to update data. The call and
params along with the response is shown below:```insert block of
code here```Please let me know how to resolve this. We can get over
a quick Hangouts call if necessary.----Select and "toggle markdown"
using the extension. Send!YMMV, but this extension has been a
gamechanger for me! Thanks for an awesome extension! :)
michaelmior - 1 hours ago
I was one of those people wondering why I would use this and I
have sent code via Gmail without problems. Personally I generally
prefer plain text email. But I could imagine trying this out.
Nice to see some positive endorsements.
hoechst - 17 minutes ago
Been using Airmail for macOS for a few years now. Pretty happy with
it, does formating with Markdown as well.
4lch3m1st - 2 hours ago
Does this support ProtonMail? I'm interested, but I'm also a bit
paranoid with my mail privacy.
ernestipark - 1 hours ago
This is pretty cool. If the main interface here is to allow you to
right click and transform the text though, does this require
permissions to read and change all data on all your pages? Can the
right click menu not only look at just the highlighted portion?
Permissions feel excessive, but not sure if this is the only way
based on how Chrome enables it.
kibwen - 1 hours ago
For those wondering which of the thousand bespoke dialects of
Markdown this speaks, this project uses marked.js:
https://github.com/chjj/marked
laurent123456 - 58 minutes ago
marked.js has a GFM option, which is what Markdown Here appears
to be using: https://github.com/adam-p/markdown-
here/blob/dc1454ecb26a951...I guess these days most projects use
GitHub markdown since it's the most common and with the best
documentation.
kibwen - 20 minutes ago
It's not quite so simple. Markdown's problem is that it's
always been pretty ill-specified. The original GFM was merely
an extension to "Markdown", with its myriad of implementations
all with differing behaviors. Even the marked.js README says
that it merely "more or less passes the official markdown test
suite"; which tests doesn't it pass? And what official Markdown
test suite is this referring to ("official" would imply that
it's from John Gruber himself, but the first Google result for
"official markdown test suite" doesn't have Gruber's name on
it)?Of course nowadays we have CommonMark, but despite ongoing
activity CM has yet to have a 1.0 release, meaning that even if
one intended to adhere to CM, ongoing maintenance would be
required to ensure compatibility. Given that it looks as if
marked.js last had a release in mid-2015, that would lead one
to assume that it's not trying to follow CM. Furthermore, it
was in March of this year that GFM was officially redefined to
be an extension of CommonMark, not of Markdown:
https://github.github.com/gfm/ , so it's unclear which version
of GFM marked.js is emulating.Lest anyone think I'm taking this
too seriously though, the project here in the OP almost
certainly doesn't need to care about compatibility. The markup
produced is completely transient, so the worst that would
happen upon hitting an unintended edge case would just be some
temporary cursing on the part of the user. Where it actually
matters is when you're storing the markup long-term and expect
to ever want to upgrade your Markdown parser without breaking
everything; for an example of the difficulty here, see how Rust
has been attempting to gracefully upgrade the parser in rustdoc
for almost a year now: https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/what-
to-do-about-pulldown-... , https://github.com/rust-
lang/rust/issues/44229
ryanpcmcquen - 3 hours ago
Such an amazing extension. It makes writing email fun again.
alpb - 1 hours ago
Very neat idea and execution, but I doubt its usefulness. Let me
explain what my thinking would be if I was the developer:Whatever
email client you're using likely has easier/better support for
bold/italics or other forms of text styling very easily, with
shortcut keys. It probably also supports numbered/bullet lists
automatically by converting lines that start with 1., 2., ... or
*/- characters, too.If you think about it, there's not a lot more
features of Markdown remaining. The email client also likely allows
easier ways to insert pictures and create links, too.This leaves us
with:- Tables: I suspect anyone actually writes tables in markdown,
also the mail editors probably support this better.- Math
equations: I suspect anyone actually uses this except academics.-
Code blocks with syntax highlighting: this seems to be the only
useful feature of the extension.I also realized the extension does
not work on Google Docs, where I was mainly hoping to use the code
formatting feature.
fny - 1 hours ago
> I doubt its usefulnessTell that to the 70k people who use it in
Chrome alone.[0] While for you it's not that useful, I've used it
for years now.I'd say Adam has built the perfect product for the
target market.[0]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail
/markdown-here/elif...
xs - 1 hours ago
I blog in markdown, I reddit in markdown, I trello in markdown, I
github in markdown. I write books in markdown. It's become my
writing method of choice. This is for me. I'm so glad reddit
doesn't have that ugly, clunky, icon bar to let me bold or
hyperlink. I'm so glad trello doesn't either.
Sir_Cmpwn - 2 hours ago
Maybe the answer is to return to sending plaintext emails? HTML
emails are an abomanation. Rather than extend them, just ditch
them.
js2 - 2 hours ago
We have lost this battle, but keep fighting the good fight. We've
also lost to top-posting and JavaScript.
jaaron - 1 hours ago
top-posting still makes me sad.
Spivak - 1 hours ago
Top posting only won in places where everyone uses Outlook.
Mailing lists still use quoted style.
katastic - 2 hours ago
Or you know, a standard that actually supports useful things like
links.
Sir_Cmpwn - 2 hours ago
Your mail client can render links in plaintext emails. It
probably already does. Bonus: no hiding evil URLs behind
phishing
tags!
michaelmior - 1 hours ago
"Standard" is arguable when it comes to email. Yes messages can
use HTML, but it's hard to get HTML email to look consistent
across different clients.
ams6110 - 1 hours ago
I do. All my emails are plain text.
isaacaggrey - 2 hours ago
Worth noting: Requires "Access [to] your data for all websites"On
the add-on site, it fortunately does note why:> Privacy: Markdown
Here accesses and modifies web content when you activate it. It
can, in theory, access other web content, but does not. It also
makes no Internet requests whatsoever. Your data is modified when
and where you choose, and does not leave your browser.Is this a
limitation of WebExtension APIs that necessitate this? Perhaps
there is an opportunity for more granular WebExtension APIs.
duskwuff - 1 hours ago
This is essentially a limitation of the browser environment
itself, not of WebExtensions. Allowing an extension to inject
code into a web page gives that extension the ability to do
anything that the page could do on its own, including
exfiltrating data. I don't see any easy way to prevent this
without severely limiting what the extension can do.
gkya - 1 hours ago
As if HTML email was not an idiotic thing already, you build a tool
to create HTML emails from a text format that was based on the
usual formatting of plain text emails (and also is less portable
than assembly).
carlmr - 1 hours ago
Would be great if you had this for Outlook. My work emails are
where I would need this the most.