MultiMarkdown 2.0.a Released

[Jacob Rus]

Fletcher T. Penney wrote:

> On Sep 14, 2006, at 7:06 AM, Michael Sheets wrote:

>> Is there any reason you've forked the entire Markdown bundle? The old 

>> version of the Markdown grammar you used is especially troubling as 

>> you've missed a ton of improvements we've made over the past month or 

>> so. Great strides have been made in the area of bold/italics, nested 

>> handling, block level content and such.

> 

> The order of some of the rules has to be customized to work with 

> MultiMarkdown, and I don't *think* it's possible to just reference the 

> base Markdown bundle.  Instead it has to be copied over.   As for the 

> changes, you were probably working on those improvements as I was 

> working on this bundle, so the changes weren't there when I started and 

> I wasn't aware that a new version was released.  I'll look into it, as 

> there are certainly improvements needed in the base markdown rules.

> 

> Where is the new version of the base Markdown bundle available?


I think there is some confusion here about how bundles work.  It is 
possible to include both a Markdown and a Multimarkdown language grammar 
in the same bundle, but because they mostly have the same syntax, 
including a full set of duplicate snippets and commands is just silly. 
It may be impossible for one language grammar to inherit from the other, 
but that does not mean they cannot share quite a bit of functionality.

Try grabbing a "cutting edge" version of TextMate by going to the 
Software Update section of the preferences.  Others on this list who use 
TextMate should do the same, as there have been many recent improvements 
to the Markdown bundle.

It's also possible that you have an outdated version of the markdown 
bundle in `/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles` or 
`~/LibraryApplication Support/TextMate/Bundles`.  If so, removing it, 
and then selecting the Bundles → Bundle Editor → Reload Bundles menu 
item should revert to the version stored within the TextMate application.


>> While forking the grammar itself was necessary, to support some of the 

>> new items in MultiMarkdown, splitting off all of the commands and 

>> snippets seems a touch extreme. With scopes we can customize commands 

>> to fire off differently based on the root scope when needed.

> 

> For the initial release, it was easier to copy over the commands that 

> are needed.  There are a few reasons that I think it's easier to turn 

> off the base Markdown module, and therefore replicated the command that 

> are useful with MultiMarkdown.  In reality, though, does it make any 

> difference if a few of the commands are replicated in both modules as 

> long as they work in the same manner?


There's no reason at all to turn off the vanilla markdown bundle.  But 
the main issue here is not replicated commands, but rather that the 
scopes and key bindings used by the new multimarkdown bundle *break* 
functionality in other parts of TextMate.


> Again - there are some incompatibilities between the original syntax and 

> the requirements of MultiMarkdown.  You are welcome to see if things can 

> be rewritten to be compatible, but I don't believe they are at this 

> point.    That is why I had to copy the grammar over and make a few 

> changes.


I suggest you try to merge your changes into the newest version of the 
markdown language grammar, and then send in any useful commands or 
snippets to the TextMate list, or to Allan, Michael, or myself, and we 
can add them to the TextMate subversion repository for all to benefit.


> Most importantly, this is why users have a choice - they are welcome to 

> pick whichever version offers the features and ease of use they desire.  

> But I agree that it may be possible to take the best of each bundle and 

> create a single version.

> 

> But from my perspective, if you want to use MultiMarkdown, particularly 

> version 2.0.a, it's a no brainer.  Go with the MultiMarkdown bundle.  

> There are a lot of features that don't exist anywhere else 

> (autocompletion of anchor, image, BibTeX citations, etc; automatic 

> formatting of lists, tables, header data, etc; and lots more)


That will be fine, as soon as the parts of the bundle which break 
existing functions are fixed. :)


> Thank you for your feedback and suggestions, and I will incorporate as 

> much as possible into the next release.


Sounds great.  We can get this stuff included in the built-in bundle, 
and then a separate release won't even be necessary.

Incidentally, I recommend every Mac user on this list take a look at 
recent TextMate markdown support.  The Markdown preview is now styled to 
look quite handsome IMO, and when using a theme which colors scopes such 
as lists, raw text, separators, etc. it is now quite easy to see syntax 
errors, etc.  Michael Sheets and Allan Odgaard have worked together to 
make highlighting work for complex nested markup.  If the official 
markdown spec were a bit more formalized and explicit, with coverage of 
edge cases, we make it just about perfect, I think.

-Jacob