Hey everyone, I figured that some new users might not know that comments and posts have a formatting standard called Markdown.
In simple terms, Markdown is a (semi)universal language that uses formatting symbols to give a certain style to a portion of text.
This quick guide can help you to write in a way that’s more appealing and easy to read.
FORMATTING | SYNTAX | EXAMPLE |
---|---|---|
New line | put two spaces at the end of the line you want to break | Line__ |
New paragraph | return two times at the end of the paragraph | Line↵↵ |
Horizontal rule | between each paragraph put three “-” or “*” | *** |
Bold | put your text between two “**” or “__” | **Bold** or __Bold__ |
Italic | put your text between two “*” or “_” | *Italic* or _Italic_ |
Subscript | put your text between two “~” | ~Subscript~ |
Superscript | put your text between two “^” | ^Superscript^ |
Inline code |
put your text between two “`” | `sudo rm -rf /` |
Headings and Titles | put one or more “#” at the beginning of the line | # Headings for level 1, ## Headings for level 2… |
Blockquotes | put “>” at the beginning of the line | > Blockquote |
Links | put the the text between [ ] and the link between ( ) | [Links]( https://piped.video/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ ) |
Images | like links but you put “!” before the first square bracket | ![Images]( https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/fa6d9660-4f1f-4e90-ac73-b897216db6f3.png?format=webp&thumbnail=96 ) |
You can also do unordered lists using “-” at the beginning of each line:
- Salt
- Potatoes
- Beans
will become
- Salt
- Potatoes
- Beans
Or ordered list by putting “1.” at the beginning of each line:
1. Salt
2. Potatoes
3. Beans
will become
- Salt
- Potatoes
- Beans
You can save other users from spoilers by encasing a paragraph between a section that starts with ":::" followed by a space and the word “spoiler” + the title of the spoiler and ends with “:::”. The spoiler will be hidden inside a menu and you’ll be able to see it if you click on it
::: spoiler warning! spoiler!
the butler did it
:::
will become
warning! spoiler!
the butler did it
In the end you can also format big code blocks by putting “```” at the beginning and at the end of each paragraph
```
println(“Hello World!”)
```
will become
println("Hello World!")
Last but not least remember that you can always use break formatting syntax by putting “\” in front of a character:
so if I want “^” in my text without having the rest of the paragraph in superscript, I’m simply going to write “\^”
Half of it doesn’t work in Liftoff.
I’m on Jerboa and everything works just fine
[Edit]: everything except spoilers
@pH3ra @rikudou
Jerboa works fine for me
Markdown is notoriously understandized, so there are lots of unofficial extensions. This is a major downside of markdown, as you cannot trust a renderer to properly show the formatting beyond the basics.
It’s still really nice, because of two great features:
The Markdown will be passed in the ActivityPub messages in plaintext, so it’s up to the app developer how to interpret the Markdown. Looks like someone already created a ticket on GitHub so I’d recommend either adding a thumbs up to increase visibility or make the change yourself if you’re able!