nanovivid

Recently John Gruber posted an entry entitled Dive Into Markdown, which explains the reasons for not writing blog entries in (X)HTML. His main point is that while it isn’t hard to write in HTML, it’s also not the easiest way to compose prose. That totally resonates with me, so I went ahead and grabbed a copy of the Markdown Perl script and integrated it (along with SmartyPants) into my site’s code.

Now instead of having to remember to properly open and close all my paragraphs and escape every &, I can just write. It’s incredibly refreshing, even moreso than I thought it would be. If you’re using MT, Markdown is a plugin. If you’re using a custom solution or something PHP based, here’s a function you can use to throw things through Markdown before posting:

Note: You don’t have to do this anymore! Get PHP Markdown instead.

Markdown’s syntax is fairly intuitive and easy to learn. You can use HTML inside a Markdown document without having to escape it or tell Markdown that you’re using HTML. I’m impressed, and totally liking it.

To see Markdown in action, check out the demo. Go forth and markdown!

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