Personally, I like MarkDown. But still, I think that MarkDown does not work well without BBCode to support it.
Markdown, for me, is quite limiting, specially with the extensions. Checkout the multiple ways of doing markdown, each one with their own ideas.
- Stackoverflow: I think they have had the best idea for the links. You write the text, add a reference at the end of the text then the url goes at the bottom (it allows other ways). But then, a new line is not a new line; {space}{space}{Enter} is a new line (so when reading the text, you better select it or actually look at the preview, else you will get a surprise). Also, It forces lists to start at 1... Always, there's no way to change that. Escaping does not really work the way a programmer expects.
Instead of expected:
Code: Select all
3\. 4\.
When it comes down to more custom stuff... they enter into a way greyer area where the MarkDown is not more readable than BBCode.Code: Select all
\3. \4.
- Github: Thankfully, new line means new line. I wonder about tables, though.
Lastely, extending MarkDown to allow it to do more is madness. Anything outside the small simple stuff is a nightmare, also because there's no easy format, adding something to MarkDown means to meddle with actual code which most BB administrators hate.
What I think we can do is to allow having a MarkDown to BBCode client side js translator that allows the user to write in MarkDown instead of BBCode and then it translates the MarkDown to BBCode. If the messages are simple like the ones we have been using on github, it should work well for most forum posts that require only very simple formating.