ChessTech News: Markdown

Markdown simplifies the input of formatted content in web forms by using easy-to-learn syntax for headings, lists, links, or emphasis — without requiring any HTML knowledge.

Paragraphs and Line Breaks

A paragraph consists of multiple lines and is separated from the next paragraph by a blank line.
A line break within a paragraph is created by two spaces at the end of the line.

Headings

There are several ways to write headings:

# 1st level heading (H1)
## 2nd level heading (H2)
### 3rd level heading (H3)
#### 4th level heading (H4)
##### 5th level heading (H5)
###### 6th level heading (H6)

Or alternatively with = and -:

Heading 1 (H1)
========================================= 

Heading 2 (H2)
-----------------------------------------

Lists

Unsorted lists:

* Topic,
- topic or
+ topic

Sorted lists:

1. First topic
2. Second topic, etc.

Hierarchical lists:

* Main topic
  * Sub topic (indented with two spaces)
  * then the list is automatically displayed hierarchically
* further main topic (again outdented)

Tip: If a number should be displayed with a period at the beginning of a line it must be marked with a \ (backslash) to prevent it from automatically becoming a sorted list:

1986\. What a wonderful year.

Text formatting

Emphasized text:

*italic* or _italic_

Strongly emphasized (or highlighted) text:

**bold** or __bold__

And here too, if you don’t want that, escape it with a backslash:

\*escaped asterisk*

Links

Directly in the text (inline):

This is [an example](http://example.com/ "title") inline link.

[This link](http://example.net/) has no title attribute.

There is more information on the [About me](/about/) page.

Or as a reference in the text, with the URL specified at the end of a text. Case is not important.

This is [an example][id] of a reference link.

[id]: http://example.com/ "Optional title"

Link references can also be abbreviated:

[Google][]

[Google]: http://google.com/

Simple links, if web or email addresses should remain visible:

<http://www.example.com/>
<address@example.com>

Images and graphics

Directly in the text

![Alternative text](/path/to/img.jpg)

![Alternative text](/path/to/img.jpg "Title")

or as a reference in the text, with the URL specified at the end of a text

![Alternative text][id]

[id]: /path/to/graphic "Title"

Quotations

> This is a quotation.
>> Nested quotation.

Code

Inline code: Code blocks are enclosed in `. If the code itself contains such a character, the code must be introduced and ended with two characters.

E.g. HTML code: `<title>`

``Code with ` in the text.``

`Code`

Code blocks (program excerpts, HTML snippets) can be indented with four spaces or one tab and are then displayed as entered.

<html>
    <head></head>
</html>

Horizontal lines

* * *

***

- - -

---

Masking of special characters

& as well as < and > are automatically masked by Markdown.

Since some characters have a special meaning in certain places in Markdown, they must be masked with a '\' if they still want to be displayed:

\ ' * _ {} [] () # + - . !

HTML in Markdown

HTML can be used directly in Markdown. Important:

Separate block elements with blank lines
Do not indent tags
Markdown is not interpreted within HTML blocks

Example:

Normal paragraph.

<table>
    <tr>
        <td>Blah</td>
    </tr>
</table>

New paragraph, an <abbr title="Abbreviation">abbreviation</abbr> can
also be inserted here.

Extensions: Markdown-Extra

Markdown-Extra is an extension to Markdown. This offers a few more options:

Abbreviations

look similar to links and are placed at the end of the text. The abbreviation is then automatically included with the long form throughout the text.

*[BBR]: Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning

Tables

are a bit more complicated: individual table cells are separated by |, each table requires a table header (also important for accessibility). Table example:

Year    | Event
------- | ------------------
1969    | Moon landing
1989    | Fall of the Berlin Wall

Markdown within HTML blocks

works with <div markdown="1"> … </div> –this way you can, for example, simply apply classes to Markdown areas and format the area above.

There are also additional formatting options for footnotes, definition lists (in HTML: DL, DT, DD), and link anchors in headings.