markdown? - Code4Lib Journal-discuss

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Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2011 10:07:07 -0400
From: Tim McGeary <timmcge...@gmail.com>
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To: c4lj-discuss@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [c4lj] markdown?
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This is a very interesting thread.  I think I've now edited articles in 
4 different ways:

* traditional MS-Word w/ Track Changes
* Open Office Word w/ highlighted changes and comments
* Google Docs with editing privileges shared by the author
* Rich Text File, which I copied into MS-Word, edited via Track Changes, 
and then saved to PDF to send back to author

I. myself, don't feel inconvenienced by another of those paths, and I've 
only had minor problems copy/pasting into the Visual tab of WordPress.

I have the hardest time getting images and code snipped in and formatted 
properly to fit.

Otherwise, I'm inclined to say the process isn't broken, so why fix it. 
  But I won't stand opposed to more efficiencies.

Tim M

On 7/25/11 9:32 AM, Tom Keays wrote:
> That's an interesting approach and one I could see working with our
> current workflow. It does mean manually updating Wordpress when edits
> are accepted, but that's not really a big problem. I like the idea of
> being able to share it with the authors.
>
> Can you clarify: you would recommend Github over Bitbucket for this
> purpose because it handles commenting better?
>
> Also, I noticed that all the text was hard-wrapped to 80 characters. Is
> line wrapping required or just your preference? When I have edited my
> articles in a text editor, I only put hard returns at the end of
> paragraphs.
>
> Tom
>
> On Sun, Jul 24, 2011 at 1:06 PM, Gabriel Farrell <gsf...@gmail.com
> <mailto:gsf...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     On Sun, Jul 24, 2011 at 11:06 AM, Jodi Schneider
>     <jschnei...@pobox.com <mailto:jschnei...@pobox.com>> wrote:
>      > That's really interesting, Gabe. How did you handle comments and
>      > suggestions?
>
>     I think we just handled larger editorial suggestions via email, though
>     I could see using issues or commit comments for that purpose. That's
>     assuming the use of Github -- we could use another ticketing/issue
>     system as well.
>
>      > It would be useful to see this repository if it's public, to get
>     ideas.
>
>     https://bitbucket.org/gsf/papers
>
>      > -Jodi
>      >
>      > On Sun, Jul 24, 2011 at 3:37 PM, Gabriel Farrell
>     <gsf...@gmail.com <mailto:gsf...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>      >>
>      >> On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 11:34 AM, Jonathan Rochkind
>     <rochk...@jhu.edu <mailto:rochk...@jhu.edu>>
>      >> wrote:
>      >> > Yeah, track changes, I dunno. I don't like our current
>     'solution' for
>      >> > track changes, passing around Word documents, but don't know
>     of a better
>      >> > solution, markdown or not. (And we don't require authors to
>     submit in Word
>      >> > or be able to open a Word file now, in fact).
>      >> >
>      >> > I wonder if there's a WordPress plugin that puts your posts in
>     a code
>      >> > versioning system of some kind and lets you look at
>     histories/diffs? Maybe
>      >> > that'd be the solution there -- which WOULD work better with
>     markdown. With
>      >> > HTML, you're likely to get a lot of diffs that are just fixes
>     to HTML syntax
>      >> > and structure and formatting rather than actual content.
>      >>
>      >> The article I edited for issue 13 (From ISIS to CouchDB) was handled
>      >> in a DVCS (Mercurial, hosted at bitbucket.org
>     <http://bitbucket.org>, because that's where
>      >> Luciano had it set up). I must say, it made for a great workflow
>     that
>      >> I would love to repeat. Not all authors would be comfortable working
>      >> in version control, and I appreciate our flexibility in handling
>      >> whatever the author brings to us, but my ideal would be Markdown
>      >> articles in a Git repo. Could we at least encourage that somehow?
>      >>
>      >> > Markdown (or textile) are SO easy to use, that I personally
>     don't see a
>      >> > problem with requiring authors to use it. We are a technical
>     journal after
>      >> > all. (It looks like there may be some textile WP plugins too,
>     so it could be
>      >> > textile instead of markdown. Depends on if ANY of these
>     plugins, textile or
>      >> > markdown, are stable, mature, and flexible/powerful enough for
>     our use,
>      >> > which I'm not sure).
>      >> >
>      >> > But I'm not looking for any immediate action on this, it's
>     really just
>      >> > food for thought. I'd like to come up with SOME better way of
>     handling our
>      >> > workflow. (While still being focused on HTML as our primary
>     delivery, not
>      >> > PDF. When I think 'troubles with workflow', I think , gee,
>     let's see what
>      >> > OJS does -- but they seem to punt on HTML entry/editing
>     workflow problems,
>      >> > instead focusing on PDFs as the primary delivery.  Which is
>     not where any of
>      >> > us want to go.)
>      >> >
>      >> > ________________________________
>      >> > From: c4lj-discuss@googlegroups.com
>     <mailto:c4lj-discuss@googlegroups.com>
>     [c4lj-discuss@googlegroups.com
>     <mailto:c4lj-discuss@googlegroups.com>] on
>      >> > behalf of Tom Keays [tomke...@gmail.com
>     <mailto:tomke...@gmail.com>]
>      >> > Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2011 9:52 PM
>      >> > To: c4lj-discuss@googlegroups.com
>     <mailto:c4lj-discuss@googlegroups.com>
>      >> > Subject: Re: [c4lj] markdown?
>      >> >
>      >> > Markdown was one of the first text syntaxes I used (in a
>     Moveable Type
>      >> > blog I had 8 or so years ago) and it is still a fine markup
>     language. I
>      >> > think it _can_ coexist with raw HTML (at least my Moveable
>     Type blog could,
>      >> > through a post-specific setting), but probably not with the
>     WYSIWYG editor.
>      >> > Something to keep in mind.
>      >> >
>      >> > Barring technical complications, however, one concern might be
>     people's
>      >> > comfort level using the markup syntax approach. That seems to
>     be the crux of
>      >> > people's resistance to using wikis. How much of a problem will
>     editors find
>      >> > it to convert a formatted word processing document to Markdown?
>      >> >
>      >> > Another concern is the ability to track changes. One of the
>     articles I
>      >> > edited this year was originally submitted in a text markup
>     syntax (Textile,
>      >> > I think). I eventually converted it to Word and coordinated
>     further edits
>      >> > with the authors that way. If we had a way to track changes
>     and share them
>      >> > with the authors using Wordpress, that would have addressed
>     that problem
>      >> > very nicely. This is true regardless of whether we decide to
>     go with
>      >> > Markdown or not. Our current editing paradigm is not to enter
>     the article
>      >> > into Wordpress until most of the changes have been made, which
>     mitigates the
>      >> > problem somewhat.
>      >> >
>      >> > These are devil's advocate objections though. If others like
>     the idea,
>      >> > we should definitely explore it.
>      >> >
>      >> > Tom
>      >> >
>      >> > On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 8:19 PM, Jonathan Rochkind
>      >> > <rochk...@jhu.edu
>     <mailto:rochk...@jhu.edu><mailto:rochk...@jhu.edu
>     <mailto:rochk...@jhu.edu>>> wrote:
>      >> > I just had a crazy idea, put it out there for discussion,
>     certainly not
>      >> > expecting any immediate action, even if people like it we'll
>     want to stew on
>      >> > it for a while.
>      >> >
>      >> > One of the most time consuming and annoying parts of editing
>     the journal
>      >> > is getting things into HTML and editing the HTML without
>     WordPress messing
>      >> > it up, etc.
>      >> >
>      >> > Lately I've been using various "mostly plaintext but with
>     conventions
>      >> > that can be formatted into html" formats, such as
>      >> > [markdown](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax),
>      >> > [textile](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax),
>     and a few
>      >> > others. They are SO much easier to use. markdown is the most
>     popular.
>      >> >
>      >> > There are some markdown plugins for WP.
>      >> >
>      >> > * What if we required authors to submit in markdown (basically
>     plaintext
>      >> > with some pretty easy to remember conventions for indicating
>     headers, lists,
>      >> > links, embedded images, etc)
>      >> > * Then we just entered the markdown in WordPress
>      >> > * Profit!
>      >> >
>      >> > ## Disadvantages
>      >> >
>      >> > * We wouldn't be able to use fancy custom HTML anymore.  This
>     has some
>      >> > pro's in enforcing consistency, but also some obvious cons.
>      >> > * We'd probably have to give up on the COinS, which I think would
>      >> > actually be fine. Some years on, COinS has not really caught
>     on, I'm not
>      >> > sure it provides a benefit commensurate to the effort it takes
>     us, and we
>      >> > usually don't manage to do it right anyway. Few of our
>     articles include
>      >> > links to non-open-access literature anyway.
>      >> > * On the other hand, we can't give up code syntax
>     highlighting. Not sure
>      >> > if WP markdown plugins would play nice with the syntax
>     highlighter plugin,
>      >> > but they might.
>      >> > * We'd have to figure out how to conveniently do
>     notes/references too,
>      >> > especially for articles that want the (Smith 2000) style to be
>     most
>      >> > readable.
>      >> > * Not sure how we'd get things like our formatted captions on
>     figures to
>      >> > work right, or center-aligned figures, etc.
>      >> >
>      >> > So there'd be some challenges. But I suspect they could be
>     overcome. And
>      >> > I think it would make our jobs so much easier, take out the
>     most annoying
>      >> > and least rewarding thing editors spend time on. And, hey,
>     forcing the
>      >> > limitation to the subset of HTML that markdown can represent
>     would make an
>      >> > article-to-PDF converter a lot easier too.
>      >> >
>      >> > ## Note
>      >> >
>      >> > This email is, as you may have guessed, in markdown.
>      >> >
>      >> >
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