Markdown is, I think it is fair to say, a frustrating "specification". It's origins are a back-of-a-fag-packet document and a buggy Perl script - and we've been dealing with the consequences ever since. There are now multiple Markdown parsers, each with their own idiosyncrasies. To make matters worse, there's a set of extensions popularly known […]
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As a dedicated and professional computer scientician0, I believe that all indices must start at zero. Not one, not two, but zero1. The zeroth2 element is sacrosanct to our creed; for in the beginning there was nothing. If you're using WordPress's JetPack, it uses an ancient version of Markdown Extra. You can either monkeypatch this, […]
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A scrap of code which I hope helps you. Problem You installed the WordPress JetPack plugin and wrote all your blog posts in Markdown. Now you want to remove JetPack or replace it with a better Markdown parser. You turn off JetPack's "Write posts or pages in plain-text Markdown syntax". You click edit on a […]
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I've launched a WordPress Plugin for an extremely niche use-case. WP GeSHi Highlight Redux works with WordPress's Classic Editor to convert Markdown to syntax highlighted code. That allows me to write: ```php $a = "Hello"; $b = 5 * 2; echo $a . str($b); ``` And have it displayed as: $a = "Hello"; $b = […]
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I've been thinking a lot about footnotes in Markdown. I've contributed a patch to make them slightly better in WordPress. Now I'm wondering how to make them more useful by enhancing their pop-up title text. To that end, I'm writing a patch for PHP Markdown which will display the first ~200 characters of a footnote […]
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Mostly notes to myself - I hope you find them useful. So, you want to write your dissertation or thesis in Markdown. But how do you manage all your citations? Install Zotero Install the Better BibTex plugin Restart Zotero. The BBT plugin will launch a configuration screen - use it to set your preferences Install […]
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Previously, I've written about using Footnotes in WordPress Markdown. A reader notified me that the footnotes0 weren't very accessible. This blog post describes the problem and proposes a solution. The Problem Using WordPress's JetPack, markdown footnotes are rendered as: Some text <sup id="fnref-1234-1"><a href="#fn-1234-1" class="jetpack-footnote">1</a></sup> ... <li id="fn-1234-1">The footnotes. <a href="#fnref-1234-1">↩</a></li> There are two main problems […]
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Did you know - WordPress Markdown supports footnotes0? There is some documentation but I thought I'd write a slightly more comprehensive guide. The code is pretty simple. Write [^1] where you want your first footnote link to appear. Then, later in the document, write [^1]: The text of the note. It doesn't matter what number […]
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