Ahnok, pah.

There's a good chance you've heard of Markdown. A popular text-to-HTML conversion tool used by forum sites such as Reddit, Github, and StackOverflow among many others.

whatismarkdown.com describes it as...

...a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML).

Many web developers praise it for its simplicity, compatibility and general awesomeness.

Although I call myself a novice hobbyist programmer I don't claim to be experienced in website building. However I'm pretty sure a simple program like Markdown (and maybe the "Smartypants" plugin too) would be quick and easy to implement into the site. So I suggest we use our keyboards the way Akatosh intended and make the Divines proud!

I shall be pasting converted HTML from the Dillinger web-app until this is a reality because I absolutely love it :D That includes this post you've been reading.

If you're in favour of this idea, let paarthurnax know you agree by replying here. If not, do share your opinions and let us discuss this as Dovah.

Personally, I prefer HTML, I've used Markdown before, on GitHub and FTB Forums, but I don't think it gives us the same options. In HTML, if you want header 1, you wrap a h1 tag around it. It's easier to use, and I'm sure the majority of people don't even use the hardcode function(But don't remove it: it's my bae) to write, just press buttons. You want bold text? Press 'B', oblique text? Press.. I... Nonetheless, I urge you not to downgrade to a converter. I also still want a mobile version, and I'm willing to help with that. The only think I like about Markdown, is when I can stop using it and start HTML.

Dinok
Personally, I prefer HTML, I've used Markdown before, on GitHub and FTB Forums, but I don't think it gives us the same options. In HTML, if you want header 1, you wrap a h1 tag around it. It's easier to use, and I'm sure the majority of people don't even use the hardcode function(But don't remove it: it's my bae) to write, just press buttons. You want bold text? Press 'B', oblique text? Press.. I... Nonetheless, I urge you not to downgrade to a converter. I also still want a mobile version, and I'm willing to help with that. The only think I like about Markdown, is when I can stop using it and start HTML.

Markdown is HTML simplified. Sure you can switch over to source and edit the HTML if you REALLY want to, but for the most part it's better. 

Btw, if you want a header 1 you put a hash (#) at the start of the line. For a header 2 just use two hashes (##) and so on. For oblique text, surround your words in asterisks (*words*) or double asterisks for bold (**words**). You can add links and images, and even draw up tables. 

I'm not gonna go into detail about why it's much easier for most people, because I think it's quite apparent. Thanks for your input though. I'm actually quite suprised to see somebody prefer writing in raw HTML. 

Bump

Hey Foduiiz, sorry I didn't see this earlier.

Dinok and myself, being programmers, are obviously comfortable with using raw HTML. However, that's certainly not the case for most users. I like the idea and I'll look into it. The main thing I want to look for is something that works for mobile and allows image and Youtube embedding.

Thanks for the reply!

I'm familiar with HTML, absolutely, but it's a pain to read and type out compared with preprocessors like Markdown. Since I posted this I've actually learned quite a bit of HTML, CSS, and little bit of PHP but I've been pretty quiet about it, hehe. 

Scroll to the very bottom of this Markdown cheatsheet. It states that videos cannot be directly embedded but you can add a linked image. As for mobile, I sorta assumed it was cross-platform but if not, could you use media queries to roll back to CKEditor for mobiles? 

The CKEditor doesn't work for mobile, actually, which is why Markdown would be a good idea. It'd work for everything, since it'd just be a regular textbox that's processed differently.

If there is something similar to CKEditor but worked on mobile. I think that would be best, perhaps. If people don't want to use the raw HTML they can use plaintext. To quote Dinok on In Sil Ah's post on using Tapatalk, "If it ain't broke don't fix it"