Markdown for dummies

Drew-r

While anyone by default can read this, that is not my intention. My intention is to have a way to make test posts in order to better learn how to use markdown. Yep, sure, i can read to death about how somebody else explains how to do it, i can even fiddle with the graphical forum tools that are supposed to intuitively assist using certain/common markdown formatting tools , many which, since that day in October 2021, remain a mystery to me. It becomes somewhat embarrassing for me to have submit a live post to the forum without knowing ahead of time if any of my intended markdown formats worked. If there was a testing ground where only i could see the results of posts containing intended formats, i would not be posting this for all to see but…. in the meantime, continue to ignore my posts as you see fit.

I learn best by reading a little something and then actually trying it - fail or suceed - and from that i hopefully figure out what i did wrong and then try try again to get it right eventually. Some people might say that is not really learning, it is only mimicry; fine with me.

make some text bold using double asterisks before and after … ?

Interesting, that worked better than expected.

Make some text bold using the toolbar B button - i already knew this one.

make some heading text using pound sign and space before and after intended header

make smaller heading using double pound sign and space before, AKA H2

make smaller

and smaller

make some italic text using single asterisks before and after

That italics only works when beginning the text immediately after the leading asterisk - no space - but if there is a space after the leading asterisk, the forum seems to interpret as “ put an indented bullet instead”

~~strikethrough using double tilde before and after~~

I seem to recall there is an alternative way to accidentally produce strikethrough text but i can never remember what the key sequence is, i can most reliably do that only by accident and possibly the dollar sign may be an accomplice 🤔

block quote produced by greater-than-sign and a space. I’m not yet sure when this is useful; to have text appear in a block with grey background, but other than not appearing as a quotation, the block aspect works, which is nice.

An ordered list produced by the number 1 and period and space followed by the intended text for the first item on this list. If i then hit return
this automatically creates a new line numbered “2” and it’s text
then “three”, and by now i see the order of this list is by numbers staring with 1/first, 2/second, etc. and is ended by hitting two returns without a space.

unordered list, produced by hyphen and space followed by intended text, then return
produces the second line of this unordered list
and a third line, and by now i see that the order of this list is by black dots which sone might call bullets but otherwise is considered unordered.

For now, i will bypass code lines as i do not think i ever need to post code, but this may change over time.

[link text …. Hello blue ] (https://drew-r.com)

does not seem to work fully as intended

but this enough for now. Next time i may explore testing with colors ……gonna hit the post button, be sure to have your ignore on

PS. I now see post post that the unordered lists displayed as intended before posting, but after posting they appear numbered 🤔

PSS fixed unordered list by making sure there was enough returns added after last numbered list item and first unordered list item.

PSS oops, unordered list is broke again

PSSS and fixed again …. .?

CyberGene

To test Markdown, make sure you switched off the rich-text editor while posting (the fountain pen icon). Because the rich-text editor would try to "escape" what you post, meaning to not use it as Markdown but instead show it the way you type it.

Drew-r

CyberGene

Okay, thank you CG. I stopped clicking the rich text fountain pen button months ago because it never seemed to produce observable results.

I also think using an ipad is somewhat of an unpredictable wildcard that may cause me some posting grief.

9190

And my Bold text doesn't work. Whether I press "B" or press Ctrl+B, the text style does not change. And when I press "I", the text becomes at once both bold and italic.

CyberGene

9190 the rich-text editor is still experimental and is buggy. I thought that I should remove it but some people still use it, so I left it. I personally don’t use it.

Drew-r

9190

I was reading a few different on-line Markdown Tutorials while composing my first test here. Along the way, i saw mention of “for desktop-PC use Ctl-B, for Mac use §B” but the symbol in front of the B was not §, it is unfamiliar to me and not visible on my ipad virtual keyboard. It sort of looks like a square with a loop in each corner.

For me, both double-asterisk before and after the intended text, and the toolbar B button work equally well.

MacMacMac

Drew-r … for Mac use §B” but the symbol in front of the B was not §, it is unfamiliar to me and not visible on my ipad virtual keyboard. It sort of looks like a square with a loop in each corner.

Apple has to be different … just because.
Everywhere else there's the Alt key … but Apple instead decided to invent this:

Drew-r

MacMacMac

Thank you MacMacMac 🙂 (see PS)

@9190, what computer are using with Markdown problems?

Don’t be shy. As the OP dummy here, since early this afternoon i’ve been trying to get past the brief history of Markdown having seemingly spawned from the needs of Markup😵‍💫.

PS. Regarding apple needing to be different: some of you might not remember me grieving after having done an ios update to ipad a few months back. I remember lamenting @DelV3nto about not yet knowing how many new bugs-as-features i now must weed through. To wit: i once often would misspell words with wrong letters but now i have the pleasure of misspelling with numbers or special characters too. Why/how, you ask? Because one such new feature affects the ipad’s virtual keyboard that now has the top 2 rows of keys overlaid ( wait, underlaid, this is re: Markdown that came from Markup) with multiple characters. Fir instance, the top row defaults to letters from q to p left to right, underlaid with numbers 1 thru 0, and the OS determines ( kinda like interpreting ipad “gestures” ) that i really did not mean to type the letter when i pressed the letter, but instead i wanted to gesture a number …. I kid you not….. sheesh! 🙁

9190

Drew-r I'm using a PC. But I think I'm using rich text editor mode, not Markdown.

Regarding iPadOS. I still use iPadOS 13.7 and have ignored versions 14 and 15, as the flaws there for me were outweighed by some new handy features. The same goes for my main iPad app, forScore. I am still, for the third year, using version 11.2.5, as there are a number of things in versions 12 and 13 that I don't like. I wrote about it on Reddit in a pretty detailed post with pictures.

I'm very happy that I mastered the almost hacker method that allows me to download from hidden sections of App Store any previous version of any app (I haven't done that even on Android, I've been using both systems for years). That way, even if I move to a new iPad, I can install my good old tried-and-true version of the app. Oh, and there are still some apps that I, like many users, once greatly regretted updating. And now, I am happy that I can download .ipa files of previous versions, install them again, and enjoy the familiar convenience.

Now many people are hoping for iPadOS 16 (at least for the Pro versions of the tablet), which will be unveiled on June 6. As much criticism as Apple received after the presentation of iPadOS 15, they have probably never received for any of their operating systems. I am much less interested in iOS 16 (as well as the new boring versions of Android) because I have practically stopped using smartphones in recent years.

Drew-r

I found another alternative for producing bold text

This text made bold by 2 leading underscore characters, a space, the intended bold text, a space, followed by 2 more underscores.

A combination for bold and italic text:

This text was made bold with 3 consecutive leading asterisks, no space, the intended text , followed by 3 consecutive trailing asterisks.
An alternative for combined bold and italic text is 3 consecutive underscore characters leading (with no space) and trailing the intended text.

There are ‘<u>’ tags available with some implementations for producing underscored text but this is generally not advised for Markdown to avoid confusion with underlined hyperlinks.

Drew-r

9190

I for one would like to know a bit more re: hidden sections of app store.

9190 which will be unveiled on June 6

06-06-2022, numerologically = 666 which of course also reduces to a variant of Aces and Eights …. Chai ! 😲

This also reminds of how my first update to ipad #2 relocated various parms in the Settings menu and also auto-enabled the Screen Time feature: ever since, at 911 Sunday morning there is an alert informing how much time the pad was used the previous week …. just because.

9190

Glad this forum understands the non-breaking space character that I use all the time. This is evident in my post above, where there are no breaks in word combinations such as iPadOS 16, June 6 or App Store. Instead of line breaks, they are always carried entirely on a new line. PW also understands this invisible symbol.

9190

Drew-r I for one would like to know a bit more re: hidden sections of app store.

Yes, indeed, almost all previous versions of almost all applications are stored on Apple servers. I didn't even know about this before, probably because I hadn't thought about it.

Well, thanks to this wonderful and magical instruction, you can try to get what you need. This method is not very trivial, is it? But it is worth it. For example:

And you only need to do it once, and all subsequent downloads of the necessary versions of the applications consist only of performing the last, fourth step.

In my case, some applications are not even available in the App Store in my region, so I had to improvise a little while doing the quest.

Some updates of important applications for me (not forScore) were so terrible that I now don't even know what I would have done without this method. Probably my review would have been even harsher then. However, I sent an even harsher review in an anonymous letter via the feedback form on the developer's site, as I doubt that such a review could have been approved by the App Store.

Drew-r

9190

Thank you.

This reminds me of the many years spent - between 90’ and 15’ - providing tech support to users and or customers operating LANs & WANs in computing environments slowly but increasingly dominated by MS-centric methodology.

During the latter 15 - 20 of those years, i was fortunate to be in a department of techs that had several genuine computer gurus, mostly guys in that era who were at times known as ‘Crackers; they did not have horns growing from their forehead. They simply understood many minute details of PC hardware/firmware/OSs and application programs …. and proactively knew about which DIY bios/api/driver/OS/plugin ‘cracks to apply to a PC/Workstation to fix resulting user problems caused each time MS had foisted the latest recommended “security update/patch” nod nod, wink wink.

That PC way of life ended for me in ‘16, but since then i’ve unwittingly been gradually sucked into the because Apple methodology 😐

9190

As for me, I've never had anything to do with IT, nor have I studied in that field (unfortunately, I guess).
In mathematics and physics I had unsatisfactory grades, I almost defiantly ignored these subjects. ) The teachers knew that I was serious about music. Things were better in the humanities.

Drew-r

For the benefit of newcomers, if you have not already read the r3levant thread, you may want to.

Markdown Primer

For my benefit, learning Markdown reminds me that @magicpiano has not posted in a while but he could probably crank out a list of basic step-by-step Markup How To’s toot sweet. I do not ever remember really ticking him off but who’s to say with these things?