Some Markdown questions for Joplin

Support
1

Dear all,

perhaps someone can point out where I am going wrong here:

  1. I have a ToDo-list consisting of dates followed by a list of checkboxes. I insert a ## in the line immediately above the dates to keep them a bit separated, but these ## just disappear when switching between the md editor and the WYSIWYG editor. I have not found any rule when this occurs; any suggestions what I need to change would be welcomed.

  2. I would like this list of ToDos to be indented, but indenting a line it with a TAB or using the menu command in EDIT (CNTRL + ]) just results in the rendering of the checkboxes disappearing and displaying as - [ ] instead. Undoing the indentation returns the checkboxes. (Further experimenting suggests that it's possible to indent all checkbox-items but the first ...)

  3. I frequently observe that I change something in the WYSIWYG editor which looks good, I then change to the markdown editor and then the changes are messed up (headers as checkboxes are no longer checkboxes etc.). What am I doing wrong?

I hope both issues can be resolved through a change in thre settings, are there any suggestions?

KInd regardss,
kai.

Joplin 2.6.9 (prod, linux)

Client-ID: 3708fbfebb3646c787c57619e7200257
Sync-Version: 3
Profil-Version: 41
Unterstützter Schlüsselbund: Nein

Revision: 58654d3

2

So the main thing here is that you need to remember that everything is stored as markdown in the database. Whatever you enter into the md editor is saved verbatim but everything in the richtext editor first gets converted to markdown - this means you have to make sure what you write actually conforms to what is possible within markdown.

So in relation to your actual points:

  1. ## is the marker for a second level heading so when you switch editor and back again it gets rendered as an empty header line. It, whether correctly or not, does not get escaped going from rt -> md
  2. Indenting with whitespace isn't really a thing in markdown, at least not at the first level or with plain text, it will get trimmed.
  3. A "header checkbox" isn't a thing in markdown so swapping editors will remove the improper formatting

Basically the richtext editor currently allows you to do some formatting which simply isn't allowed within markdown so you have to be aware of formatting you might be adding that simply can't be supported.
Some more information can be found here: About the Rich Text editor | Joplin

1 Like
3

Good morning,

first of all, thanks for the quick reply; obviously I'll need to improve on my md.

Regarding your feedback:
Q1: so if I just want to insert some spaces, is it better to use < b r > than two hashmarks or does it not matter?

Q2: is there a possibility for me to indent items in a checklist? I thought that was what CTRL + ] was for?

Q3: so a hierarchical checklist like
[] A
[] a1
[] a2
will not be possible in md, correct?

What exactly are the consequences of using a feature in RT that is not supported in md; will it get removed when I switch to md, so switvching should be avoided? Up to now I have been using both randomly but preferring md for complicated stuff and RT vor viewing ...

Kind regards,
kai.

PS - checked your link (once again); it already settles some of my issues ...

4

You can use a <br> or horizontal line *** or if it is just visual differentiation you need then just format the dates using the proper header formats like:

# Things that happened:
## 01/01/2000
- [  ] thing 1
- [  ] thing 2
    - [  ] subthing 1

Yes, just not at a top level
i.e. you can indent the child items of a list to make a hierarchy you just can't have the first level indented.

Perfectly possible and supported:

md editor

image

rt editor

image

The thing you can't do is mix lists so you can't have:

- bullet point
    - [ ] fsfds
    - bullet point

The above md is supported in the markdown editor but not in the richtext editor, it doesn't display correctly which is one of the limitations.

Sometimes you will find stuff being escaped where you might not intend it
For example I can write this in markdown:

- [ ] This is how you write a checkbox " - [ ] "

If I now go into the md editor and back again, nothing changes. However if actually edit anything on that note then the extra text gets escaped and becomes:

- [ ] This is how you write a checkbox " - \[ \] "

Basically because the rt editor isn't expecting markdown tags to be written they get escaped in the saved markdown.

In markdown you add bold tags **like this**

becomes

In markdown you add bold tags \*\*like this\*\*

(This only applies if you add the tags in the rt editor, if you add them in the md editor then it renders the styles normally and nothing gets escaped)

Other times you will just find stuff just doesn't get saved.
For example you can make some crazy table colours with the options in the rt editor:
image
but if you just swap notes (not even editors) those changes aren't saved as they aren't markdown

image

Personally I don't use the richtext editor because of some of these limitations and I'm far happier writing in markdown and viewing the rendered output.
Depending on your requirements you might like to look at the rich markdown plugin which adds things like inline images and a more "rendered" looking styleto the markdown editor.

3 Likes
5

That helped a lot, thank you. I see I shouldn't really mix md & RichText, which is what I've become used to. Also the indentation info was new to me, so thanks for that, too. And the bit about things getting escaped has also puzzled me. Guess I'll print out the MD-cheatsheet and memorize it.

Kind regards,
kai.

2 Likes
6

I do also recommend the Rich Markdown plugin, as that'll give you the preview you want in the editor window (which to me is preferable over a the separate preview pane) - then yes, you won't need to switch between the markdown editor and the WYSIWYG.

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