TPF’s Discourse platform uses Markdown which is a simplified markup language developed for use on the internet.
Although Markdown can be written with any text editor - which is the point! - becoming familiar with the conventions takes some time if you’re not particularly tech-oriented.
Hence the software category of Markdown editors, inexpensive or free software applications which let you enter Markdown in WYSIWYG format.
Here is an article from my tech writing site which reviews some common markdown editors and provides a bit of background.
Personally I’ve really grown to like Bear. It’s Mac and iOS only, but it’s a really cool tool for composing longer forum posts as it mirrors Discourse’s formatting conventions (with some small variations), and it syncs your files between all your devices. The others reviewed also have their strong points and most are cross-platorm.
When composing a reply that has numerous quotes - I find it easier to handle them externally. Also things that I write which can later be transferred to the forum.
I’ve read your excellent technical piece with its ‘Feature Wrap’.
For me, Zettir seems to tick all the boxes. It’s open source, has wikilinks but it doesn’t synch between devices. And I’m not sure I can spend the time or limited brain power working it out.
Would you be able to provide an example of how this works in practice?
Basically, how would it convert Jonathan Bennett’s pdf without damaging its format?
pdfs can be opened with a pdf reader with edit capabilities and text selected and copied into any application. I use a pdf app called PDF Expert but there are many others. I nowadays avoid Adobe because it’s moved to a subscription model and is pretty expensive. MS Word also opens PDFs and converts them on the fly.
But as Jamal pointed out for the William James essay a text edition had also been provided which bypassed pdf.
I’m asking not only because of the Reading Group discussion.
I’m reminded of previous TPF writing events with @Baden’s suggestion re using compatible formatting pre- submission.
I can’t remember the details and, now, it’s probably irrelevant!
Indeed. And I will probably use it. @Jamal’s OP is clear and comprehensive re available options. And the use of best one for quoting in TPF.
That’s an old-school computer term. meaning something you can do as part of a single action, rather than having to undertake another step first. Like, opening a PDF in word, you just open it, you don’t have to perform a ‘convert’ step.
To add to what @Wayfarer said, when writing a long post it makes sense to compose it offline and save it to your computer, before you think about sending it off into the cloud. At least, this seems the best way to me.
There’s also the fact that if you do a lot of writing, you’ll have your own favourite writing setup, in a writing app or your favourite text editor. This is the most convenient, most comfortable place to be, an oasis of creative calm, where there are no distractions, notifications, etc.
EDIT: And since both the writing apps and Discourse use Markdown, you can just copy and paste between them and everything just works.
Posters had to use paste bin if they wanted tags included. So then we would follow their paste bin link and copy from there into an OP and their tags would work. In fact, I needed to do that for the philosophy writing activity too. And it was awkward as it was a long essay.
On the date listed above, The Philosophy Forum experienced a service disruption affecting the systems noted. During this period, some users may have been unable to complete routine operations such as processing orders or syncing data. We identified the issue, implemented a resolution, and have since restored normal service levels.
This was copied and pasted directly from micorosft word, and kept in tact headings and tables. That’s pretty interesting.
It works fine. In that respect Discourse is streets ahead of Plush. (On Plush I sometimes used a text editor called Sublime in which I had created macros for italic, bold, url etc - no longer needed.)
But I haven’t been using MS Word now I’m no longer in tech writing.
What would be needed ideally would be that the form received in a message could be copy-pasted directly into an OP as is. And maybe this works here because I just copied this from the above message (no tags):
