How closely does Podio use the Markdown spec?
Answered
Somewhere I saw a reference to this markdown spec:
http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax
I am trying to get a table to format in an item comment and it doesn't seem to work... are tables supported? Is there a list of items that are and are not supported?
Thanks!
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Hi Patrick,
we are using Misaka for parsing markdown. Tables are not parsed by default but apparently this can be easily configured, so I guess we can enable it if there aren't any downsides.
George
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George, thanks for the reply! That would be awesome... I think this would help lots of people be able to supply better formatted comments... would help us tremendously within our API app... we want to use tables to show a different style comment and help differentiate it from all other comments so that it makes more sense to our users...
After you all discuss, can you let me know if this is something you will be turning on and when? thanks!
Patrick
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This is awesome!
I just discovered Markdown support by accident when writing private message. I typically use Markdown style formatting regardless to improve readability.... and it was parsed!
What a nice surprise. Where all can it be used? I see it doesn't get parsed on rich text fields.
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Hi Patrick
Markdown rendering is not supported on the mobile platforms, it will just display the raw text. This is actually on purpose as there are no good ways of rendering markdown on iOS and Android. However markdown is specifically made to work and be readable in its raw form.
Christian
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It may be that other users don't have a need for it, but I find I am constantly trying to remember markdown and usually give up in frustration, despite having many comments/posts that really need it. The irony of this post, is that if I look at the bottom of this comment box, there is a very helpful and ample formatting toolbar that at the least would be helpful to implement in comments in Podio. I'm not saying we need kitchen sink here, but something would be of benefit to users. Our conversations often get very detailed and we'd love that ability along with easy link insertion. I assume though, that this isn't a podio based help system?
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Hey Podio developers...
I am getting more clients asking why our markdown links in PodioTools don't work on Android / IOS... can you please implement support for this on mobile...
I think if you are going to allow markdown, then you need to support it everywhere... :)
Thanks!
Patrick Steil
http://www.podiotools.com -
I agree that supporting markdown only in some places is unintuitive and misleading. I would like to use markdown not only in comments and sidebar widgets but also in those large text areas with formatting toolbar. Being forced to format text in different ways depending on the place where it is entered is ridiculous.
What's even worse, I can create tables in comments etc. but I am unable to use them in the item descriptions (in the editor with formatting toolbar). Quite odd, don't you think?
I think the best solution would be to support markdown everywhere and use formatting toolbar only as a markdown inserting helper (see http://markdownpad.com/ for instance).
When are you going to make it more consistent?
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We also like markdown, but we cannot in anyway have only markdown formatting.
It is a requirement to have a WYSIWYG editor in the large text fields. Having a WYSIWYG editor that produces markdown, would be great, but we have looked countless times to find such an editor that works properly in all browsers and have the required functionality.
Christian
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What about thinks like (found at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4843649/wysiwyg-edit-with-markdown-output):
- http://code.google.com/p/ittyeditor/
- http://fguillen.github.com/MDMagick/
- https://github.com/aaronsw/html2text
?
The second one is quite smart in the sense that the toolbar is displayed when the editor is focused. It would perfectly fit your requirement of not cluttering the interfece with overusing formatting toolbars.
The last one is a script that could be potentially integrated with the editor already used at podio.
All in all, is it really that hard to attach simple javascript functions to the toolbar buttons? They would only have to take selected text and surround it with markdown tags (asterisks, underscores etc.) To me it seems quite doable (and I am software developer).
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We care a lot about the experience of our users, and we work hard every day to make Podio better. I am extremely offended by your attitude and to think that a 5 minute Google search will bring solutions is ridiculous.
http://code.google.com/p/ittyeditor/ - A project that hasn't been modified in 5 years?
http://fguillen.github.com/MDMagick/ - A very basic editor that doesn't support IE
https://github.com/aaronsw/html2text - A tool to convert HTML to markdown. We already use this for some parts like HTML email replies to comments, but it has nothing to do with a WYSIWYG editor.
It is _very_ hard to make a WYSIWYG editor that actually works properly. Countless projects of this nature have been started (and never finished), because people think it is simple. Supporting all browsers, supporting copy/paste from various sources, having a decent experience, etc. is actually very hard. We do know how to do Javascript (we have tons of it) and we do know how to develop software.
There are some promising tools out there like the new editor for Wikipedia, and the second we have one that is better than TinyMCE we will switch to that immediately. However your suggestions are not even close.
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I have to take Christians side on this. WYSIWYG-editors are usually a pain in the ass to work with. Podios editor is so far the best I've seen. Probably because of the simple design and low number of options and functions. There has been some discussion on my article about Markdown as well. http://www.podiohelp.com/rich-text-formatting-in-podio-ui/#disqus_thread
Both the wordpress editor AND Google Docs lacks table support. And yes, you can install a plugin for table support in WP but it's almost impossible for a non-tech user handle (in my experience). I've also used Mindtouch (FCK editor) that has table support. This editor is actually so bad we've had people that refuse to use it. I think that's exactly what Podio wants to avoid.
Forgive me for writing this but this discussion only relates to super user concerns, and Podio isn't really focused on the super users right? I'm relieved that Podio sticks to what it believe is the right for the user, much like Apples "We don't let you do that because we think it would suck." attitude, and doesn't listen to much for all the feature requests coming from us super users.
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Christian, I am very sorry if you have felt offended by my suggestions. This was absolutely not my intention. I apologize for being so pretentious. I do appreciate your work and I think you are great people making a really great product!
Well, I too much focused on markdown support and underrated the need for WYSIWYG editor for non-technical people (thanks Carl for making it clear to me).
The main thing I was concerned about was actually the inconsistency between ability to use markdown in comments etc. and inability to use it in large text fields. Unfortunately, the problem seems to be harder than I thought.
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Just want to give you Christian a tip: http://imperavi.com/redactor/
I've tried it all little and it seems pretty nice, probably you have already seen this but if you don't, this could be worth a test.
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Is it possible to include Markdown support in the profiles? We are using a Click to Call SIP solution, and having the link be formatted as "John Public" instead of "sip:john.public@onsip.domain.com" would make the company directory pretty useful. Also the ability to include more than one field as the default view in the Employee Directory could make this even easier!! (podio.com/employeenetwork/members).
Thanks,
Jacob
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TinyMCE sports quite a few features that I think would resolve most of the issues people are describing in this thread. Is it possible to turn on support for Tables and Source Code?
Source Code in particular allows me to convert my markdown into html locally with pandoc and paste it into tinyMCE. Then any tables I have could be edited with the Tables features.
I'm specifically talking about the text area widget.
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