Markdown

I started blogging on Tumblr a few weeks ago, and I was still using the Rich Text Editor. I tinkered with the settings and switched my editor to Markdown. Not only that, but I've only known Markdown a little because I was trying to push my website using Static Site Generator, but the caveat is, you really can't edit your website if you don't have NodeJS.

Despite my little experience with it, I guess it's time to familiarize myself with Markdown

What is markdown?

According to Wikipedia,

Markdown is a lightweight markup language with plain-text-formatting syntax. Its design allows it to be converted to many output formats, but the original tool by the same name only supports HTML. Markdown is often used to format readme files, for writing messages in online discussion forums, and to create rich text using a plain text editor.

Markdown combines HTML and plain text editing, which makes it non-distracting. You don't need to enclose words with tags like in HTML. You also don't need to memorize HTML tags as well.

Almost all platforms support Markdown. Tumblr has Markdown, and WordPress has the Markdown block in Gutenberg.

Ever since I started writing in Markdown, I totally forgot that the "post title" exists in Tumblr. I'm using the two pound (hashtags) signs to create a title for my blog. In WordPress, however, a post title is essential.

What I also liked about Markdown is it behaves like Notepad. Text will not change formatting whenever you copy from a different website, unlike in a Rich Text Editor.

Markdown is not that difficult to memorize. If you're familiar with Slack, the text formatting option is the same with Markdown. Notable cheat sheets in Markdown are located on John Gruber's Daring Fireball website and Adam Pritchard's Markdown Cheatsheet on GitHub.

However, if you're not comfortable writing in Markdown, you can always use the Rich Text Editor.