Good question - I don't think Textile is "insufficient", but I wonder if 
Markdown might be a better choice in the general case? Two reasons:

 1: The support tools are a whole lot better
 2: The [link support][] is more flexible

If the intention is that Tracks is for everyone, not just for Rails 
devs, then Markdown seems a better fit than Textile. What do others think?

-- Thomas.


[link support]: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax#link

Eric Allen wrote on 2008/06/14 18:26:
> Hmm, I guess I've exposed a wider issue. I'm happy to write in support  
> for different text processors, be they markdown, textile, or something  
> else. Our default, though, should be something easy that we bundle  
> with the tracks install. Is RedCloth insufficient for this?
>
> On Jun 13, 2008, at 1:59 PM, Thomas Nichols wrote:
>
>   
>> Hi Eric,
>>
>> irb(main):001:0> require 'redcloth'
>> => true
>> irb(main):002:0> RedCloth.new("*Goodbye Blue Monday*").to_html
>> => "<p><strong>Goodbye Blue Monday</strong></p>"
>> irb(main):003:0> require 'maruku'
>> => true
>> irb(main):004:0> Maruku.new("*Goodbye Blue Monday*").to_html
>> => "<p><em>Goodbye Blue Monday</em></p>"
>>
>>
>>
>> Since Textile and Markdown syntaxes differ -- in Markdown,  
>> **strong** and _em_ whereas Textile uses *strong* and _em_ -- I  
>> don't really grok the code:
>>
>>     
>>> def markdown(text)
>>>   RedCloth.new(text).to_html
>>> end
>>>       
>> A separate issue is that although RedCloth _can_ do Markdown, it's a  
>> very restricted implementation -- hence BlueCloth and Maruku. And  
>> RDiscount is fantastically fast, but I've had an occasional
>> irb(main):003:0> require 'rdiscount'
>> => true
>> irb(main):004:0> RDiscount.new("*Goodbye Blue Monday*").to_html
>> (irb):4: [BUG] Segmentation fault
>> ruby 1.8.6 (2008-03-03) [i686-linux]
>>
>> though usually it gives
>> irb(main):001:0> require 'rdiscount'
>> => true
>> irb(main):002:0> RDiscount.new("*Goodbye Blue Monday*").to_html
>> => "<p><em>Goodbye Blue Monday</em></p>\n"
>>
>> How about a brain-dead solution -- just scribbling a
>> class HumaneText; def to_html(string)...end;end
>> and then using an environment.rb setting for
>> Tracks::TEXT_FORMAT = :rdiscount  # :maruku, :bluecloth, :rpeg- 
>> markdown, :textile
>> to decide which processing to apply?
>>
>> It's not going to win any awards ;-) ... but it would be good enough  
>> for my needs. What do others want?
>>
>> Thomas.
>>
>>
>> Eric Allen wrote on 2008/06/13 17:58:
>>     
>>> Thomas & Walter: They both handle both Markdown and Textile  
>>> because  RedCloth parses both. There will be zero impact on user  
>>> experience.
>>>
>>> Reiner: the only difference appears to be hard breaks:
>>>
>>> def markdown(text)
>>>   RedCloth.new(text).to_html
>>> end
>>>
>>> def textilize(text)
>>>   if text.blank?
>>>     ""
>>>   else
>>>     textilized = RedCloth.new(text, [ :hard_breaks ])
>>>     textilized.hard_breaks = true if textilized.respond_to?  
>>> ("hard_breaks=")
>>>     textilized.to_html
>>>   end
>>> end
>>>
>>> :hard_breaks means one newline is a <br/> and two makes a paragraph
>>>
>>>
>>> On Jun 13, 2008, at 1:56 AM, Reinier Balt wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>>>> It does make sense to keep everything consistent. Is there much   
>>>> difference between markdown and textilize, besides textilize being  
>>>> a  built-in Rails helper?
>>>>
>>>> Reinier
>>>>
>>>> Van: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
>>>>  ]Namens Eric Allen
>>>> Verzonden: vrijdag 13 juni 2008 3:32
>>>> Aan: [email protected]
>>>> Onderwerp: [Tracks-discuss] textile() vs. markdown()
>>>>
>>>> I was looking through commit #876 today and noticed that in some   
>>>> places we use markdown() to invoke RedCloth, and in others we use   
>>>> textilize(). Does it make sense to keep everything consistent? If   
>>>> so, it seems to me textilize() would be better, since it's a  
>>>> built- in Rails helper.
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Tracks-discuss mailing list
>>> [email protected]
>>> http://lists.rousette.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/tracks-discuss
>>>
>>>       
>
> _______________________________________________
> Tracks-discuss mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://lists.rousette.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/tracks-discuss
>   
_______________________________________________
Tracks-discuss mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.rousette.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/tracks-discuss

Reply via email to