susam/mdme
Self-rendering Markdown content
repo name | susam/mdme |
repo link | https://github.com/susam/mdme |
homepage | |
language | JavaScript |
size (curr.) | 57 kB |
stars (curr.) | 137 |
created | 2018-10-26 |
license | MIT License |
MdMe
MdMe (pronounced em-dee-me) is a lightweight JavaScript utility to create self-rendering Markdown documents.
MdMe is a stripped down fork of TeXMe. While TeXMe renders both Markdown and LaTeX content, MdMe renders Markdown only. Thus MdMe is smaller, lighter, and simpler than TeXMe, and a good choice for writing Markdown-only (no LaTeX) documents.
Contents
Get Started
Content in Textarea
Copy and paste the code below into an HTML file with .html
as the
extension name:
<!DOCTYPE html><script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mdme@0.3.0"></script><textarea>
# Atomic Theory
**Atomic theory** is a scientific theory of the nature of matter, which
states that matter is composed of discrete units called *atoms*. It
began as a philosophical concept in ancient Greece and entered the
scientific mainstream in the early 19th century when discoveries in the
field of chemistry showed that matter did indeed behave as if it were
made up of atoms.
## John Dalton
Dalton believed atomic theory could explain why water absorbed different
gases in different proportions - for example, he found that water
absorbed carbon dioxide far better than it absorbed nitrogen.
## See Also
See the Wikipedia article on [Atomic
Theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_theory) for more details.
This file contains one line of HTML code followed by Markdown content.
Open this HTML file with a web browser. It renders itself to look like this: content-in-textarea.html.
There are two simple rules to remember while using MdMe:
- MdMe removes any leading and trailing whitespace in the content before rendering the content to HTML.
- TeXMe uses the first non-empty line of the content to set the page
title if no explicit
<title>
element is specified. Any leading and trailing whitespace and hash (#
) characters are removed while setting the page title.
Content in Body
If you do not like to start your document with HTML tags, you can
write your content first and add the <script>
tag in the end like
this:
# Atomic Theory
**Atomic theory** is a scientific theory of the nature of matter, which
states that matter is composed of discrete units called *atoms*. It
began as a philosophical concept in ancient Greece and entered the
scientific mainstream in the early 19th century when discoveries in the
field of chemistry showed that matter did indeed behave as if it were
made up of atoms.
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mdme@0.3.0"></script>
Here is the output: content-in-body.html.
Although, the code looks neater in this example, there is a limitation
associated with this form of writing content: Since the content is part
of the HTML <body>
element (there is no <textarea>
element in this
code), the content should be written carefully, so that it does not have
any HTML syntax error. See the Caveats section of the
TeXMe documentation for more details about this.
CDN URLs
Use the following URL in the <script>
tag to load version 0.3.0 (the
current version at this time) of MdMe:
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mdme@0.3.0
Use the following URL in the <script>
tag to always load the latest
version of MdMe:
https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mdme
If you need something really easy to remember, use this URL to load the latest version of MdMe:
https://unpkg.com/mdme
Valid HTML5
The “get started” example in the previous section attempts to show how
we can create a self-rendering document with a single line of HTML code
but this brevity comes at the cost of standard conformance. For example,
the required <title>
element is missing from the code. Further the
<textarea>
element is not closed.
For the sake of completeness and correctness, here is a minimal but complete and valid HTML5 example:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<title>Notes on Atomic Theory</title>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mdme@0.3.0"></script>
<textarea>
# Atomic Theory
**Atomic theory** is a scientific theory of the nature of matter, which
states that matter is composed of discrete units called *atoms*. It
began as a philosophical concept in ancient Greece and entered the
scientific mainstream in the early 19th century when discoveries in the
field of chemistry showed that matter did indeed behave as if it were
made up of atoms.
</textarea>
Here is the output: valid-html5.html.
It has a few more lines of code to ensure that this HTML5 code validates successfully at validator.w3.org. As a result, this example does not look as concise as the one in the previous section.
In case you are wondering, a valid HTML5 document does not require
explicit <head>
, <body>
, or the closing </html>
tags. So they have
been omitted for the sake of brevity while maintaining completeness and
correctness.
In practice though, it is not necessary to write verbose code like this. All browsers follow the robustness principle, so they can render the shorter example in the previous section just fine.
Use MdMe in Web Pages
Style
MdMe renders the document on a white pane against a gray background by
default. This is due to a configuration option named style
that is set
to 'viewer'
by default.
To render the document with a minimal style on a completely plain white
background, set the style
configuration option to 'plain'
. Here is
an example:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<script>window.mdme = { style: 'plain' }</script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mdme@0.3.0"></script><textarea>
# Atomic Theory
**Atomic theory** is a scientific theory of the nature of matter, which
states that matter is composed of discrete units called *atoms*. It
began as a philosophical concept in ancient Greece and entered the
scientific mainstream in the early 19th century when discoveries in the
field of chemistry showed that matter did indeed behave as if it were
made up of atoms.
Here is the output: style-plain.html.
To render the document with absolutely no style, set style
to
'none'
. The 'none'
style option is useful to disable the default
'viewer'
style set by MdMe before defining a custom style with
regular CSS code. Here is an example:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<script>window.mdme = { style: 'none' }</script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mdme@0.3.0"></script>
<style>
body {
background: lightcyan;
}
main {
max-width: 20em;
padding: 1em;
border: medium double gray;
margin: 2em auto;
background: lightyellow;
}
</style>
<textarea>
# Atomic Theory
**Atomic theory** is a scientific theory of the nature of matter, which
states that matter is composed of discrete units called *atoms*. It
began as a philosophical concept in ancient Greece and entered the
scientific mainstream in the early 19th century when discoveries in the
field of chemistry showed that matter did indeed behave as if it were
made up of atoms.
Here is the output: style-custom.html.
Note that the rendered content is displayed within a <main>
element
inside the <body>
. That is why these elements are being styled in the
above example.
Skip Automatic Rendering on Load
When MdMe loads, it begins rendering the document automatically. This
automatic rendering may be skipped by setting renderOnLoad
option to
false
. Here is an example that disables automatic rendering and then
invokes rendering later on the click of a button by using the
mdme.renderPage()
function from the MdMe API:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<script>window.mdme = { renderOnLoad: false }</script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mdme@0.3.0"></script>
<script>
window.onload = function () {
var button = document.getElementById('button')
button.onclick = function () {
button.remove()
mdme.renderPage()
}
}
</script>
<textarea>
# Atomic Theory
**Atomic theory** is a scientific theory of the nature of matter, which
states that matter is composed of discrete units called *atoms*. It
began as a philosophical concept in ancient Greece and entered the
scientific mainstream in the early 19th century when discoveries in the
field of chemistry showed that matter did indeed behave as if it were
made up of atoms.
</textarea>
<div><button id="button">Render</button></div>
Here is the output: skip-render.html.
Set Options After Loading
When we load MdMe with the <script>
tag, it begins rendering the
document as soon as it loads. Therefore in the above examples, we define
the configuration options prior to loading MdMe. We do this by defining
an object named window.mdme
with the configuration options defined as
properties in this project.
However if we set the renderOnLoad
option to false
, we prevent MdMe
from rendering the document after it loads. We now have the control to
invoke the rendering at a later time, e.g., on the click of a button. In
this case, it is possible to set configuration options after loading
MdMe with the mdme.setOption()
function. This function takes two
parameters: option name as a string and option value.
Here is an example that skips automatic rendering on load and sets the
style to 'plain'
using this function:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<script>window.mdme = { renderOnLoad: false }</script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mdme@0.3.0"></script>
<script>
window.onload = function () {
var button = document.getElementById('button')
button.onclick = function () {
button.remove()
mdme.setOption('style', 'plain')
mdme.renderPage()
}
}
</script>
<textarea>
# Atomic Theory
**Atomic theory** is a scientific theory of the nature of matter, which
states that matter is composed of discrete units called *atoms*. It
began as a philosophical concept in ancient Greece and entered the
scientific mainstream in the early 19th century when discoveries in the
field of chemistry showed that matter did indeed behave as if it were
made up of atoms.
</textarea>
<div><button id="button">Render</button></div>
Here is the output: set-options.html.
Configuration Options
Here is a quick reference for all the supported configuration options:
-
style
('viewer'
by default): Three values are supported:'viewer'
,'plain'
, and'none'
. The viewer style displays the rendered document on a white pane against a gray background. The plain style displays the content with a very minimal style that does not change the background style. If set to'none'
, no style whatsoever is applied and the document is displayed with the browser’s default style. -
renderOnLoad
(true
by default): Begins rendering the document automatically on load when set totrue
. Skips rendering automatically when set tofalse
. -
onRenderPage
(undefined
by default): A callback function that is automatically invoked after MdMe completes rendering the page. It is guaranteed that MdMe has completed rendering the page before invoking this callback. -
commonmarkURL
(CDN URL of minified commonmark.js, i.e., commonmark.min.js, version 0.28.1 by default): URL to load commonmark.js while running in a web browser.
License
This is free and open source software. You can use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of it, under the terms of the MIT License. See LICENSE.md for details.
This software is provided “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, express or implied. See LICENSE.md for details.
Support
To report bugs, suggest improvements, or ask questions, create issues.