Should the Scratch forums switch to using Markdown?

TheMonsterOfTheDeep

Oh no… markdown is the one where code blocks must be inset with tabs? Please no - that's like impossible to work with. If all I want to do is share a block of code, I don't want to have to open a text editor to tab it all in (my other option is to tab all the lines manually, because my browser does not support tabbing things in with the tab button).

Although, all the markdown I've used (Github-flavored, I guess?) does not use tabs and uses ``` instead - I think that is a much more feasible option.

ScratchMan544

I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand you…

Jonathan50

In Markdown headings only have hashes at the start.

MathlyCat

I don't know, I feel like BBCode is currently the better alternative for newer forumers where it's easier to understand; though I know and like Markdown.

ScratchMan544

MathlyCat wrote:
I don't know, I feel like BBCode is currently the better alternative for newer forumers where it's easier to understand; though I know and like Markdown.

I'm sorry, but I still don't completely understand where BBCode is easier to understand. And as I've been saying, it would be optional - there would be multiple modes.

TheMonsterOfTheDeep

ScratchMan544 wrote:
MathlyCat wrote:
I don't know, I feel like BBCode is currently the better alternative for newer forumers where it's easier to understand; though I know and like Markdown.
I'm sorry, but I still don't completely understand where BBCode is easier to understand. And as I've been saying, it would be optional - there would be multiple modes.

BBCode tags are short and easy to remember, and have a common a logical structure - b stands for bold, u stands for underline, s stands for strikethrough. URLS are easier to remember the syntax for - it's just url=, while I can never remember the markdown url syntax (although I'm guessing if I learned it, I would…) Also, there's less interference with plain text - in BBCode, there are exactly two symbols that ever need to be escaped (as far as I'm aware) while in markdown there's a lot more. Finally, as I mentioned above, code formatting in markdown is literally the worst code formatting I've come across - every single line needs to be indented, and that takes a lot of effort to just share a simple code snippet.

jji10

Sorry, I don't know anything about coding, but would that change anything in the website itself? Would it look different or have different features?

Rachyl

I feel like this would break a lot of posts (bringing unwanted tags in older posts for example). And in all honesty, I find BBCode easier to understand, as well as more intuitive.

ScratchMan544

As I have been saying, there would be multiple modes. You could continue to write BBCode if you wanted to. I think that a post's BBCode is stored on the server and it is converted to HTML when it is served, so the MD would have to be converted to BBCode (Unless they wanted to do a lot of stuff with the forum system). As to the issue regarding indented code, they should probably adopt the``` syntax. Also, we really need inline code literals in BBCode. It would be very helpful.

Jonathan50

Rachyl wrote:
I feel like this would break a lot of posts (bringing unwanted tags in older posts for example). And in all honesty, I find BBCode easier to understand, as well as more intuitive.

Because of the way the Scratch forums work updates to the meaning of markup don't affect old posts until they're edited. (This is why the emojis on old posts are broken.)

Edit: Ninja'd by 31 seconds. (My browser froze after I pressed submit.)

Last edited by Jonathan50 (Dec. 9, 2016 05:48:04)

TheMonsterOfTheDeep

ScratchMan544 wrote:
As I have been saying, there would be multiple modes.

Then, the question, of course, is whether there is a good 1-to-1 conversion between both of the syntaxes - which would be required.

ScratchMan544

TheMonsterOfTheDeep wrote:
ScratchMan544 wrote:
As I have been saying, there would be multiple modes.
Then, the question, of course, is whether there is a good 1-to-1 conversion between both of the syntaxes - which would be required.

The main problem I see is `inline code literals` which are one of my favorite parts of MD but do not exist in BBCode.

Digital_Gaming

What major advantages does this have over BB code?

Sigton

Digital_Gaming wrote:
I'm not sure what markdown is. No support until some explains it.

Please make sure that you fully understand the suggestion before forming an opinion on it. Read suggestion 2 on the sticky to learn why.

Sigton

theonlygusti

Yes, it should use markdown. Typing BBCode is a pain.

theonlygusti

TheMonsterOfTheDeep wrote:
ScratchMan544 wrote:
MathlyCat wrote:
I don't know, I feel like BBCode is currently the better alternative for newer forumers where it's easier to understand; though I know and like Markdown.
I'm sorry, but I still don't completely understand where BBCode is easier to understand. And as I've been saying, it would be optional - there would be multiple modes.
BBCode tags are short and easy to remember, and have a common a logical structure - b stands for bold, u stands for underline, s stands for strikethrough. URLS are easier to remember the syntax for - it's just url=, while I can never remember the markdown url syntax (although I'm guessing if I learned it, I would…) Also, there's less interference with plain text - in BBCode, there are exactly two symbols that ever need to be escaped (as far as I'm aware) while in markdown there's a lot more. Finally, as I mentioned above, code formatting in markdown is literally the worst code formatting I've come across - every single line needs to be indented, and that takes a lot of effort to just share a simple code snippet.

Oh yes, BBCode is easy to use! I completely forgot, silly me. isn't it obvious that [s] is for strikethrough and not strong? In markdown this uses the silly ~~strikethrough~~ syntax, which looks nothing like what it represents. And yeah, using [b], [i], [u] and [s] makes perfect sense because it's impossible to confuse them for [big], [img], [url] and [small].

Also code formatting is such a pain isn't it?

[code=python]
class Graph:
    def __init__(self, nodes):
        ...
[/code]

Instead of the much more verbose `inline` code markdown uses, along with its stupid coloring system:

```py
class Graph:
    def __init__(self, nodes):
        ...
```

Like, who remembers `.py`? It's not like it's your file extension or anything.

You're right, the verbose, ugly, unreadable, slow, painstaking BBCode is clearly the better system.

I mean, compare how simple lists are to make in each markup language! BBCode clearly trumps markdown in this respect.

Last edited by theonlygusti (Dec. 9, 2016 08:18:19)

Paddle2See

theonlygusti wrote:
TheMonsterOfTheDeep wrote:
ScratchMan544 wrote:
MathlyCat wrote:
I don't know, I feel like BBCode is currently the better alternative for newer forumers where it's easier to understand; though I know and like Markdown.
I'm sorry, but I still don't completely understand where BBCode is easier to understand. And as I've been saying, it would be optional - there would be multiple modes.
BBCode tags are short and easy to remember, and have a common a logical structure - b stands for bold, u stands for underline, s stands for strikethrough. URLS are easier to remember the syntax for - it's just url=, while I can never remember the markdown url syntax (although I'm guessing if I learned it, I would…) Also, there's less interference with plain text - in BBCode, there are exactly two symbols that ever need to be escaped (as far as I'm aware) while in markdown there's a lot more. Finally, as I mentioned above, code formatting in markdown is literally the worst code formatting I've come across - every single line needs to be indented, and that takes a lot of effort to just share a simple code snippet.
Oh yes, BBCode is easy to use! I completely forgot, silly me. isn't it obvious that [s] is for strikethrough and not strong? In markdown this uses the silly ~~strikethrough~~ syntax, which looks nothing like what it represents. And yeah, using [b], [i], [u] and [s] makes perfect sense because it's impossible to confuse them for [big], [img], [url] and [small].

Also code formatting is such a pain isn't it?
[code=python]
class Graph:
    def __init__(self, nodes):
        ...
[/code]
Instead of the much more verbose `inline` code markdown uses, along with its stupid coloring system:
```py
class Graph:
    def __init__(self, nodes):
        ...
```
Like, who remembers `.py`? It's not like it's your file extension or anything.

You're right, the verbose, ugly, unreadable, slow, painstaking BBCode is clearly the better system.

I mean, compare how simple lists are to make in each markup language! BBCode clearly trumps markdown in this respect.

You have some great points in your post. But the sarcastic and rude tone is very off-putting and diminishes your presentation substantially. The old saying goes “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”, meaning, if we want people to do what we want (or convince them of our point of view), we should be sweet and not rude to them. It also fits much better with the Scratch Community Guidelines.

TheMonsterOfTheDeep

theonlygusti wrote:
Oh yes, BBCode is easy to use! I completely forgot, silly me. isn't it obvious that [s] is for strikethrough and not strong?

To me, yes. I mean, it's pretty easy to memorize.

In markdown this uses the silly ~~strikethrough~~ syntax, which looks nothing like what it represents.

It actually does look like what it represents…

And yeah, using [b], [i], [u] and [s] makes perfect sense because it's impossible to confuse them for [big], [img], [url] and [small].

It's not impossible to confuse them, but they do correspond to the keys used commonly for those specific things - so it's really really easy to memorize them. Anyone who has used Microsoft Word has probably used Ctrl-B and Ctrl-I - they're basically standard.

Of course, one does still have to memorize them. However, I think they are easier to memorize than markdown because they all share a common syntactic structure - the only thing that has to be memorized is the words that go in them, which are really not that hard to memorize. Compare that to markdown - every individual formatting specifier has its own individual syntax. Take your own example. Based on the fact that ~~text~~ is strikethrough, I might imagine that __text__ is underline. However, I just looked it up - it's emphasis, not underline. This is, again, a memorization thing - but I have found that I really easily forget markdown, while I really easily remember bbcode. Maybe I'm an outlier in how easy these are to memorize, so maybe my personal experience isn't statistically significant - but I wouldn't be surprised if I did represent the majority.

Instead of the much more verbose `inline` code markdown uses, along with its stupid coloring system:
```py
class Graph:
    def __init__(self, nodes):
        ...
```
Like, who remembers `.py`? It's not like it's your file extension or anything.

I specifically mentioned that I dislike the standard markdown code formatting, which looks like this:

    line 1
    line 2
    line 3
    line 4

Tabbing in every single line is a real pain. That is my one and only gripe with it (besides, again, the whole memorization issue).

You're right, the verbose, ugly, unreadable, slow, painstaking BBCode is clearly the better system.

Which is why, of course, I said that I prefer it over markdown.

I mean, compare how simple lists are to make in each markup language! BBCode clearly trumps markdown in this respect.

I agree. I would hate to have to escape my dashes just to make a list that wasn't HTML-ified.

Sigton

Paddle2See wrote:
(or convince them of our point of view)

Paddle supports suggestion?

Sigton

jokebookservice1

I have been thinking about that userscript, and realised that you cannot quote somebody in original markdown. That means we'll need Scratch flavoured markdown if this gets implemented.

In markdown, there is `> quote` syntax, however I think there should be a `>username quote` syntax (note the lack of space between `>` and `username`. I also think that there is a problem with newlines… which exist in some people's posts. So maybe a

>username (This is so interesting
and I support this
suggestion.
)

and for actual parantheses

>username \(This is so interesting
and I support this
suggestion.
)

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