Messages and comments now support formatting (with Markdown)

During the week we added in formatting support to our message and comment areas within TeamworkPM. The new formatting option is called Markdown. It allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML). 


Markdown is a way to format your text to add bold and italic text, headings and a few other things, without having to use HTML.


Since we have added this new formatting feature in we thought we better give you a way to see what your messages will look like before they are sent. So we have also included a new preview option into the message section to allow you to see how your formatting will look before it's published


Markdown: An introduction


Below is a brief introduction into Markdown and how to use it. You can also check out the Wikipedia page which goes into more detail as well as given examples of other tricks and tips for using it.


Bold and italic text:
To create italic text, surround one or a few words with stars:

This is how you create *italic text*.

To create bold text, surround one or a few words with double stars:

This is how you create **bold text**.

If you have to, you can make your text both bold and italic:

This is how you create ***bold and italic text***.

A bulleted list:

Create bulleted lists using stars:

 * Item 1  

 * Item 2  

 * Item 3

The text above will look like this:

  • Item 1
  • Item 2
  • Item 3

You can also use plus (+) or minus (-) instead of a star.


Creating links:

Combine brackets and parenthesis to create links in the text. It's quite simple:

Here's [a great website](http://www.teamworkpm.net). It'll really help you manage your projects.

The text above will look like this:

Here's a great website. It'll really help you manage your projects.

 

Quotes:

Add a greater-than sign (>) in front of anything you are quoting, and the text will be moved slightly towards the middle.

 > " Time is the scarcest resource,   

 > and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed."  

 > – *Peter Drucker*

The text above will look like this:

 Note how the name, Peter Drucker, is surrounded by stars to make it render in italic text.

Headers:

Markdown has support for different levels of headers using the hash sign (#):

 # This is the title

Here's some very good boiler plate text. I don't even know what a boiler is, even less a plate. 

 ## This is the subheader

Subheaders are awesome. Even better than you think. 

 ### This is the third level header.

And so on.

The text above will look like this:


This is the title

Here's some very good boiler plate text. I don't even know what a boiler is, even less a plate.

This is the subheader

Subheaders are awesome. Even better than you think.

This is the third level header.

And so on.

10 responses
Awesome!

This is a bit like Textile: http://www.textism.com/tools/textile/

This is archaic.
A WYSIWYG interface would have been much more productive.
Hi Jim,
Thank you for your comment. We knew at the time we made the decision to go with Markdown that we'd get some negative feedback. The decision to go with Markdown was difficult. One day we'd be on the Markdown side of the fence, the next day we were on the WYSIWYG side of the fence. We needed to weigh up all factors and make a decision.
We have a WYSIWYG editor in the Notebooks and it would have been easy to implement what we had. But HTML WYSIWYG editors cause problems too. Pasting content in can cause havoc, the editors even stripped down are bloated and they won't work on iPad or mobile browsers. We wanted something subtle that was browser agnostic, wasn't bloated and as Stackoverfow and similar sites have shown, easily adopted by people. We chose Markdown over Textile as we felt it was more natural and worked with a wider range of styles that people write with. 
Markdown also allowed us to automatically format the millions of existing Messages and Comments already in the app. It was basically the best tool for the job. We are happy with WYSIWYG editing in Notebooks and that suits that particular need. Markdown has been successful since we integrated it and it suits the messages. Messages and comments *don't* need to be formatted too much, the important bit is the message (Typical of Facebook's comments and Messages). 
Markdown allows simple formatting such as emphasis, lists, links etc Plus it works for Email Replies, on Mobile devices etc
Finally, and this was an important factor, we can always offer a choice. Or we could decide in the future that Yes, WYSIWYG editors have reached a point where we feel comfortable using it for Messages and Comments, and we can implement it easily and keep the existing formatting. It's a lot harder to go the other way.
Dan.

I agree with Jim, but what would be cool would be functions to select text and apply Markdown. I've seen this on the forum software by www.minibb.net.

Just to make Markdown a little bit easier.

Hi Lawrence,
We actually have an editor in testing. It's similar to the one used on Stackoverflow with a few improvements to list items. The next step is to integrate it in the app. I'll also have a look at the one you mentioned.
Cheers,Dan.
Dan,
Thanks for the response. If the WYSIWYG is too much of a problem, an editor like the one on stackflow would be great, their live preview is also very nice (saves a step when creating the comment.

Thanks

Hi guys! great improvement I really liked it!
It would be really amazin if only this would work in the Task Description, since seems that only works on the comments of the Task.

I´m sure you can do it!

Regards
Guille

This addition has made comments unusable for us. We often use them to post code, or useful SQL queries to pull up data related to a particular task. Any underscores in our comments are mistreated, and disappear in turn for italics. I appreciate that it's a valuable feature for most, so my request is for a global preference to turn this off. Or even better a tick box in each comment to turn this on or off as well.
I agree with guillermo... would be great if this worked with task descriptions. Is this planned?

Thanks!
Eric

Hi Eric,

This is something we have put on the Suggestions list and could well make it in to the app at some point. I agree this would potentially be a very useful update.

Dan.