Re: [MediaWiki] Markdown Syntax usage

Pandoc [1] has been brought up which is a converter of the syntax forms.

What I was thinking was we initially have the syntax as MediaWiki, but 
offer a dropdown when editing to select Markdown.  If someone selected 
markdown then we would do an AJAX call to get the content converted to 
Markdown on the fly to be sent to the client for editing.  Then upon 
posting if the syntax were Markdown the system would put back through 
Pandoc to be converted back to MediaWiki syntax.  If the content were 
submitted in MediaWiki syntax then it would know to bypass Pandoc and 
just directly save.  To make it easier for those that only want to use 
Markdown, we could even look into a user config setting to let users 
select their preferred format in their user config, with MediaWiki 
syntax being default.

-Garbee

[1] http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/

On 10/31/2012 12:58 PM, Alex Komoroske wrote:
> I agree that a client-side (or pre-database-side) solution is probably 
> best, but I agree that it's risky for exactly the reason Andrew points 
> out. Do people know of any good converters that we could look at?
>
> On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 11:07 PM, Andrew Rowls <eternicode@gmail.com 
> <mailto:eternicode@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     I think it can be done completely client-side (it's just parsing
>     and translating text content), but a hybrid approach (have the
>     server translate for an ajax request, or something) may be more
>     stable.
>
>     But I'm thinking this is a bit risky.
>
>     In order to allow a client-side option of editing articles via
>     markdown, you would need a script(s) that was capable of
>     translating *both* wiki-to-markdown (ie, DB to interface) *and*
>     markdown-to-wiki (ie, user input to DB).  If there is any
>     discrepancy (read: bugs) between the two translations, you'll get
>     content morphing and potentially content lost in translation.
>
>     Wiki and markdown are simple enough that this may not be a
>     concern, but I thought I'd bring it up.
>
>     Andrew
>
>     On 10/31/2012 05:58 AM, Jonathan Garbee wrote:
>
>         Paul mentioned during the teleconference this week that it
>         could be
>         done client side.  I don't think it can completely be done
>         there but
>         I do think that there is a way to get it done without any extra
>         confusion.  It would basically allow editors to edit in
>         Markdown but
>         the information saved in the DB would remain MediaWiki markup.
>
>         I don't have the time to write up the idea now, but when I do
>         I will
>         post it to this ML.
>
>         -Garbee
>
>         On 10/29/2012 2:18 PM, David Bradbury wrote:
>
>             I agree. The last thing I think we want when it comes down to
>             maintaining articles is having multiple syntaxes
>             interweaved within
>             the same article. Heck, even if mixing syntaxes weren't
>             allowed,
>             having to switch between using different markup languages when
>             editing different articles would be annoying - Both for
>             regular
>             users and new users.
>
>             I would be fine with converting to Markdown if needed, but
>             whatever
>             the final syntax is, it needs to be consistent.
>
>             On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 8:52 AM, Jonathan Garbee
>             <jonathan@garbee.me <mailto:jonathan@garbee.me>
>             <mailto:jonathan@garbee.me <mailto:jonathan@garbee.me>>>
>             wrote:
>
>             Bug 19692 [1] is a request for Markdown Syntax to be added
>             as an
>             option for editing pages.
>
>             I personally don't see where this would come in handy
>             unless we
>             started to use markdown as the primary syntax.  This would
>             just add
>             one more way to do content which would just add to
>             confusion on
>             markup.
>
>             What are your thoughts?
>
>             Thanks, -Garbee
>
>             [1] https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=19692
>
>
>
>
>