> Although it sucks that markdown is not standardized
Does CommonMark count?
2,920 karma · joined October 1, 2009
username @ gmail
Does CommonMark count?
https://keenwrite.com/blog/2025/09/08/feature-matrix/
The matrix, which you can download, aims to provide an objective comparison. Any idea what features are missing, or can you qualify what makes the other text formats "better"? From my perspective, they are largely equivalent.
https://keenwrite.com/blog/2025/09/08/feature-matrix/
Are many features missing from the list? From what I can tell, objectively, plain text formats offer largely equivalent functionality.
https://keenwrite.com/blog/2025/09/08/feature-matrix/
I wrote the feature matrix to objectively compare plain text-based documentation formats. How do DocBook's features compare against Markdown?
https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2020/04/11/project-gutenberg-p...
A hasty generalization with a little confirmation bias, perhaps?
$ time keenwrite.bin --version
KeenWrite version 3.6.5
Copyright 2016-2025 White Magic Software, Ltd.
user 0m0.329s
> It's worth noting this is a common perception about Java, and there's some historical truth to it (especially with Swing desktop applications from the 2000s). However, the absolute statement "no Java app... ever" is the fallacy - it's an overgeneralization from limited personal experience to a universal claim.
My text editor, KeenWrite[1], offered binaries for Linux, macOS, and Windows. The Windows binary was axed due code signing costs and requiring third-party builds, rather than any technical issues with cross-platform packaging.
One way is to create self-extracting executable binaries using a tool such as warp[2]. I've built an installer script[3] (install.sh) to create platform-specific launchers. Running `time keenwrite.bin --version` on Linux shows 0.327s; after the first run, subsequent launches are quick.
[2]: https://github.com/kirbylink/warp
[3]: https://repo.autonoma.ca/?action=repo&repo=keenwrite.git&vie...
Have you been telling representatives? Here's a letter I wrote to mine:
The linked article suggests widening redacted areas more than needed with some randomization applied to the width. Strikes me that that wouldn't do much except add a few more possible solutions.
> Information Leaking from Redaction Marks: Even when content is properly removed, the redaction marks themselves can leak some information if not done carefully. For example, if you have a black box exactly covering a word, the length of that black box gives a clue to the word’s length (and potentially its identity).
Does X-ray employ glyph spacing attacks and try to exploit font metric leaks?
https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2022/01/08/logging-code-smell/
https://keenwrite.com/blog/2025/10/15/creating-catchy-cover-...
A handful of prospective managers told me that my cover letter stood out among hundreds of applicants.
Here's the full shell script I used to build cover letters (you'll need to point "theme dir" to the directory where the cover letter theme---aspiros---is found). With this script, creating a cover letter went from about 20 minutes down to 5. If you have any troubles getting it to work, contact me via https://whitemagicsoftware.com/.
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# This script builds a cover letter based on a company's branding. The
# parameters include:
#
# $1 -- The company name as a directory, containing colours and logo.
# $2 -- The company name (normal case).
# $3 -- The company role (job title).
# $4 -- The relative path to the cover letter to typeset.
#
# Example:
#
# ./build.sh corp Corporation 'Job Title' template/cover-letter.md
readonly SCRIPT_SRC="$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[${#BASH_SOURCE[@]} - 1]}")"
readonly SCRIPT_DIR="$(cd "${SCRIPT_SRC}" >/dev/null 2>&1 && pwd)"
readonly COMPANY_DIR="${1:-template}"
readonly COMPANY_NAME="${2:-Template}"
readonly COMPANY_ROLE="${3:-Job Title}"
readonly PATH_COVER_LETTER="${4:-climate/cover-letter.md}"
readonly EMPLOYEE_NAME="${5:-Your Name}"
readonly EMPLOYEE_ROLE="${6:-Your Role}"
read -r COLOUR_FG COLOUR_BG COLOUR_AC < "$COMPANY_DIR/colours.txt"
readonly COLOUR_FG COLOUR_BG COLOUR_AC
magick \
signature-black.png \
-alpha extract \
-background "#${COLOUR_AC}" \
-alpha shape \
-define png:color-type=6 \
signature.png
rm -f ${HOME}/.local/share/keenwrite/logo_svg_*.pdf
keenwrite.bin \
-i "${PATH_COVER_LETTER}" \
-o cover-letter.pdf \
--set=employer.company.name="${COMPANY_NAME}" \
--set=employer.position.role="${COMPANY_ROLE}" \
--set=employee.name="${EMPLOYEE_NAME}" \
--set=employee.role="${EMPLOYEE_ROLE}" \
--set=employee.contact.phone="555-1212" \
--set=employee.contact.email="email@hostname" \
--set=employee.portfolio.url="gitlab.com/YourName" \
--set=employee.address.line.1="address 1" \
--set=employee.address.line.2="city, province" \
--set=employee.address.line.3="postal code" \
--metadata="foreground=${COLOUR_FG}" \
--metadata="background=${COLOUR_BG}" \
--metadata="accent=${COLOUR_AC}" \
--image-dir="${SCRIPT_DIR}/${COMPANY_DIR}" \
--theme-dir="${HOME}/dev/java/keenwrite/themes/aspiros"
exiftool \
-overwrite_original_in_place \
-Title="${EMPLOYEE_NAME}" \
-Author="${EMPLOYEE_NAME}" \
cover-letter.pdf
By wholly automating food distribution, from seed to delivery, we eliminate the costs of high-quality, nutritious food, relying on volunteers for infrequent system maintenance. (This requires bootstrapping capitalism; I won't dive into the details here, because it would take a book ...)
Aside, that diagram is in the novel and was drawn about ten years ago.
I posit that until this point in history there has never been a time where technology would allow us to grow and distribute food for free (in terms of both financial cost and labour of time). With the rise and convergence of AI, robotics, low-cost renewable energy, advances in optimal light-biomass conversion, diminishing costs on vertical farms, and self-driving vehicles, we have within our reach a way to produce food at essentially no cost.
Think through what would happen to society and our economy if food was free for anyone, anywhere. Think about the meaning of work.
If these ideas intrigue you, beta are readers wanted, see my profile for contact.
Star Size Comparison 3, simply a stunning visualization.
Brilliant. See Tom Scott's video about Vancouver's Rabbit Line.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMTZvA8iFgI
Speaking of Vancouver and trains, the Broadway Subway Project is currently under construction, extending an existing line nearly 6 km for $3 billion.
https://www.broadwaysubway.ca/about/stations
In my hard sci-fi novel (beta readers wanted, see profile for contact), delivery bots play key roles in the plot. For local deliveries, a community of 1,000 people was constructed with no overhead cables, allowing food delivery by drop-drones.
Being the author of KeenWrite, a Markdown editor that uses YAML variables (for content and metadata), I'm biased, but here's my take:
1. Writing <p> tags for every paragraph gets tedious.
2. Markdown is succinct (**bold** vs. <strong>bold</strong>).
3. Content is easier to edit when not surrounded by angle brackets.
4. Content is more robust against markup gaffs (e.g., missing closing tags, tag typos).
5. HTML mixes structural markup with content, making design changes harder.
6. Markdown's simpler format is more portable to other output formats (PDF, ePub).
7. Markdown diffs are easier to review, and likely have fewer merge conflicts.
8. Non-technical contributors are more comfortable with Markdown.
9. Embedding metadata through meta tags is messier and harder to parse using raw HTML.
Here are a couple of blog posts written in Markdown and converted to HTML using my software:
* https://keenwrite.com/blog/2025/09/08/feature-matrix/
* https://keenwrite.com/blog/2025/10/15/creating-catchy-cover-...
The user manual is a set of Markdown documents converted to PDF (note how the words TeX and ConTeXt and LaTeX are typeset; try to do that with HTML):
I don't understand the appeal of having local appliances bound to the fate of network services.
Try that to give him a sense of awe. Watch it on a big screen, all the way to the end.
A feature matrix[3] compares various text formats and ecosystems for generating PDF files.
[1]: https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2019/05/22/typesetting-markdow...
Exactly: If instructions for how to style the content are in the same file as the content, then that is mixing content _with_ presentation logic. Avoiding this approach to documentation is what I alluded to in writing, "Presumably, Typst allows including styles from external sources."
#show strong: set text(fill: blue)
Join us for a David Lynch double
feature with *Mulholland Drive* and
*Inland Empire* next Tuesday
at 8:15 PM.
ConTeXt has also been making strides in creating accessible PDF files:
* https://meeting.contextgarden.net/2024/talks/hans+mikael/con...
* https://wiki.contextgarden.net/Input_and_compilation/Accessi...
syn_1: black
syn_2: purple
syn_3: red
syn_4: gold
syn_5: blue
syn_6: silver
syn_7: yellow
syn_8: brown
syn_11: teal
syn_16: orange
# Avoid issues when wine is installed.
sudo su -c 'echo 0 > /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/status'
# Capture the entirety of the instructions to obtain the input length.
readonly INSTRUCT=$(
join ${PATH_PREFIX_SYSTEM} ${PATH_PROMPT_SYSTEM} ${PATH_PREFIX_SYSTEM}
join ${PATH_SUFFIX_USER} ${PATH_PROMPT_USER} ${PATH_SUFFIX_USER}
join ${PATH_SUFFIX_ASSIST} "/dev/null" ${PATH_SUFFIX_ASSIST}
)
(
echo ${INSTRUCT}
) | ./llamafile \
-m "${LINK_MODEL}" \
-e \
-f /dev/stdin \
-n 1000 \
-c ${#INSTRUCT} \
--repeat-penalty 1.0 \
--temp 1.5 \
--silent-prompt > output.txtThis change to the JDK ended up breaking my documents, so I can only imagine that other people encountered the same issue. My apologies. I wrote the authors of the change, informing them that their assumption that the "impact is low" was incorrect. There are unit tests attached to the JDK bug, and EchoSVG has updated its unit tests. Hopefully that will decrease the likelihood of this happening in the future.
[1]: https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-8343006