# Markmin markup language

## About

This is a new markup language that we call markmin designed to produce high quality scientific papers and books and also put them online. We provide serializers for html, latex and pdf. It is implemented in the `markmin2html` function in the `markmin2html.py`.

Example of usage:

    m = "Hello **world** [[link http://web2py.com]]"
    from markmin2html import markmin2html
    print markmin2html(m)
    from markmin2latex import markmin2latex
    print markmin2latex(m)
    from markmin2pdf import markmin2pdf # requires pdflatex
    print markmin2pdf(m)

## Why?

We wanted a markup language with the following requirements:

- less than 300 lines of functional code
- easy to read
- secure
- support table, ul, ol, code
- support html5 video and audio elements (html serialization only)
- can align images and resize them
- can specify class for tables and code elements
- can add anchors
- does not use _ for markup (since it creates odd behavior)
- automatically links urls
- fast
- easy to extend
- supports latex and pdf including references
- allows to describe the markup in the markup (this document is generated from markmin syntax)

(results depend on text but in average for text ~100K markmin is 30% faster than markdown, for text ~10K it is 10x faster)

The web2py book published by lulu, for example, was entirely generated with markmin2pdf from the online web2py wiki

## Download

- http://web2py.googlecode.com/hg/gluon/contrib/markmin/markmin2html.py
- http://web2py.googlecode.com/hg/gluon/contrib/markmin/markmin2latex.py
- http://web2py.googlecode.com/hg/gluon/contrib/markmin/markmin2pdf.py

markmin2html.py and markmin2latex.py are single files and have no web2py dependence. Their license is BSD.

## Examples

### Bold, italic, code and links

SOURCE | OUTPUT
`# title` | title
`## section` | section
`### subsection` | subsection
`**bold**` | bold
`''italic''` | italic
`~~strikeout~~` | strikeout
```verbatim``` | `verbatim`
```color with **bold**``:red` | color with bold
```many colors``:color[blue:#ffff00]` | many colors
`http://google.com` | http://google.com
`[[**click** me #myanchor]]` | click me
`[[click me [extra info] #myanchor popup]]` | click me

### More on links

The format is always `[[title link]]` or `[[title [extra] link]]`. Notice you can nest bold, italic, strikeout and code inside the link `title`.

### Anchors

You can place an anchor anywhere in the text using the syntax `[[name]]` where name is the name of the anchor. You can then link the anchor with link, i.e. `[[link #myanchor]]` or link with an extra info, i.e. `[[link with an extra info [extra info] #myanchor]]`.

### Images

This paragraph has an image aligned to the right with a width of 200px. Its is placed using the code

`[[alt-string for the image [the image title] http://www.web2py.com/examples/static/web2py_logo.png right 200px]]`.

### Unordered Lists

    - Dog
    - Cat
    - Mouse

is rendered as

- Dog
- Cat
- Mouse

Two new lines between items break the list in two lists.

### Ordered Lists

    + Dog
    + Cat
    + Mouse

is rendered as

1. Dog
2. Cat
3. Mouse

### Multilevel Lists

    + Dogs
     -- red
     -- brown
     -- black
    + Cats
     -- fluffy
     -- smooth
     -- bald
    + Mice
     -- small
     -- big
     -- huge

is rendered as

1. Dogs
   - red
   - brown
   - black
2. Cats
   - fluffy
   - smooth
   - bald
3. Mice
   - small
   - big
   - huge

### Tables (with optional header and/or footer)

Something like this

    -----------------
    **A**|**B**|**C**
    =================
      0  |  0  |  X
      0  |  X  |  0
      X  |  0  |  0
    =================
    **D**|**F**|**G**
    -----------------:abc[id]

is a table and is rendered as

A | B | C
0 | 0 | X
0 | X | 0
X | 0 | 0
D | F | G

Four or more dashes delimit the table and | separates the columns. The `:abc`, `:id[abc_1]` or `:abc[abc_1]` at the end sets the class and/or id for the table and it is optional.

### Blockquote

A table with a single cell is rendered as a blockquote:

> Hello world

Blockquote can contain headers, paragraphs, lists and tables:

    -----
      This is a paragraph in a blockquote

      + item 1
      + item 2
      -- item 2.1
      -- item 2.2
      + item 3

      ---------
      0 | 0 | X
      0 | X | 0
      X | 0 | 0
      ---------:tableclass1
    -----

is rendered as:

> This is a paragraph in a blockquote
> 1. item 1
> 2. item 2
>    - item 2.1
>    - item 2.2
> 3. item 3

> 0 | 0 | X
> 0 | X | 0
> X | 0 | 0

### Code, `<code>`, escaping and extra stuff

    def test():
        return "this is Python code"

Optionally a ` inside a ```...``` block can be inserted escaped with !`!.

NOTE: You can escape markmin constructions ('',``,**,~~,[,{,]},$,@) with '\' character: so \`\` can replace !`!`! escape string

The `:python` after the markup is also optional. If present, by default, it is used to set the class of the <code> block. The behavior can be overridden by passing an argument `extra` to the `render` function. For example:

    markmin2html("``aaa``:custom",
                 extra=dict(custom=lambda text: 'x'+text+'x'))

generates

`'xaaax'`

(the ```...``:custom` block is rendered by the `custom=lambda` function passed to `render`).

### Html5 support

Markmin also supports the <video> and <audio> html5 tags using the notation:

    [[message link video]]
    [[message link audio]]

    [[message [title] link video]]
    [[message [title] link audio]]

where `message` will be shown in brousers without HTML5 video/audio tags support.

### Latex and other extensions

Formulas can be embedded into HTML with $$`formula`$$. You can use Google charts to render the formula:

    LATEX = '<img src="http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=tx&chl=%s" />'
    markmin2html(text,{'latex':lambda code: LATEX % code.replace('"','\"')})

### Code with syntax highlighting

This requires a syntax highlighting tool, such as the web2py CODE helper.

    extra={'code_cpp':lambda text: CODE(text,language='cpp').xml(),
           'code_java':lambda text: CODE(text,language='java').xml(),
           'code_python':lambda text: CODE(text,language='python').xml(),
           'code_html':lambda text: CODE(text,language='html').xml()}

or simple:

    extra={'code':lambda text,lang='python': CODE(text,language=lang).xml()}

    markmin2html(text,extra=extra)

Code can now be marked up as in this example:

    ``
    <html><body>example</body></html>
    ``:code_html

OR

    ``
    <html><body>example</body></html>
    ``:code[html]

### Citations and References

Citations are treated as internal links in html and proper citations in latex if there is a final section called "References". Items like

    - [[key]] value

in the References will be translated into Latex

    \bibitem{key} value

Here is an example of usage:

#

##

1. 2. > ###

##

    As shown in Ref.``mdipierro``:cite

    This is a test block with new features:This is a blockquote with a list with tables in it:This is a paragraph before list. You can continue paragraph on the next lines.
    This is an ordered list with tables:Item 1Item 2aabbcc112233Item 4 T1T2t3aaabbbcccdddfffggg12305.0This this a new paragraph with a table. Table has header, footer, sections, odd and even rows:Title 1Title 2Title 3data 1data 22.00data 3data4(long)23.00data 533.50New sectionNew data5.00data 1data2(long)100.45data 312.50data 4data 5.33data 6data7(long)8.01data 8514Total:9 items698,79Multilevel listsNow lists can be multilevel:Ordered item 1 on level 1. You can continue item text on next stringsOrdered item 1 of sublevel 2 with a paragraph (paragraph can start with point after plus or minus characters, e.g. ++. or --.)This is another item. But with 3 paragraphs, blockquote and sublists:This is the second paragraph in the item. You can add paragraphs to an item, using point notation, where first characters in the string are sequence of points with space between them and another string. For example, this paragraph (in sublevel 2) starts with two points:.. This is the second paragraph...this is a blockquote in a listYou can use blockquote with headers, paragraphs, tables and lists in it:
    Tables can have or have not header and footer. This table is defined without any header and footer in it:redfox0bluedolphin1000greenleaf10000This is yet another paragraph in the item.This is an item of unordered list (sublevel 3)This is the second item of the unordered list (sublevel 3)This is a single item of ordered list in sublevel 6and this is a paragraph in sublevel 4This is a new item with paragraph in sublevel 3.Start ordered list in sublevel 4 with code block: line 1
      line 2
         line 3Yet another item with code block:  line 1
    line 2
      line 3 This item finishes with this paragraph.Item in sublevel 3 can be continued with paragraphs.  this is another
    code block
        in the
      sublevel 3 itemThe last item in sublevel 3This is a continuous paragraph for item 2 in sublevel 2. You can use such structure to create difficult structured documents.item 3 in sublevel 2item 1 in sublevel 2 (new unordered list)item 2 in sublevel 2item 3 in sublevel 2item 1 in sublevel 2 (new ordered list)item 2 in sublevel 2item 3 in sublevle 2item 2 in level 1item 3 in level 1new unordered list (item 1 in level 1)level 2 in level 1level 3 in level 1level 4 in level 1This is the last section of the testSingle paragraph with '----' in it will be turned into separator:And this is the last paragraph in the test. Be happy!

    ## References

    - [[mdipierro]] web2py Manual, 5th Edition, lulu.com

### Caveats

`<ul/>`, `<ol/>`, `<code/>`, `<table/>`, `<blockquote/>`, `<h1/>`, ..., `<h6/>` do not have `<p>...</p>` around them.