I get a lot of one-off requests for scripts and tips on how to handle tasks specific to people’s workflow or writing style. I generally keep myself pretty busy, so I usually reply with a quick idea or thought and leave it up to them to run with it. David Coleman emailed me this morning, though, with a request that struck me as an interesting enough idea to whip up a script before work.

What David wanted to do was take the idea behind my “Inline Links to References” command in the Markdown Service Tools and do something similar for footnotes, allowing him to write footnotes inline in a paragraph and have them converted before processing with MultiMarkdown. It’s not such a chore to skip a few lines and drop in the footnote syntax that this should be part of the spec, but it is something I would find handy in several situations. So…

The format I picked uses a syntax like this to denote a footnote:

This is the regular text(*This is the footnote*), and you can drop the footnote in at any point.

The Service can handle footnotes inside of lines, at the end of lines, spanning multiple lines with breaks (creates paragraphs) and does fine with Markdown within the footnote. One nice thing about this syntax is that–if you’re previewing as you write–it italicizes the output to differentiate it until you’ve used the service to move it out of the main text.

Multi-line footnotes need to begin at the end of a line of text, and just use double-newlines to separate paragraphs within the footnote, e.g.:

...the end of the paragraph. (*This is a footnote

which is going to span

more than one line*)

Here’s the script, also available as a Service download at the end of the post.

Update: I just added a fix (in code below and the Service download) for making sure that footnote reference titles aren’t duplicated if you have existing MultiMarkdown-formatted footnotes in the document.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
 
def e_sh(str)
	str.to_s.gsub(/(?=[^a-zA-Z0-9_.\/\-\x7F-\xFF\n])/n, '\\')
end
 
input = STDIN.read
 
footnotes = input.scan(/\(\*(.*?)\*\)/m)
existing = input.scan(/^\[\^fn(\d+)\]: /i)
counter = existing.empty? ? 1 : existing.uniq.sort[-1].join.to_i + 1
 
output = []
footnotes.each {|note| 
	output << {'orig' => note[0], 'title' => "fn#{counter}", 'footnote' => note[0] }
	counter += 1
}
 
o = []
output.each_with_index { |x,i| 
	o.push("[^#{x['title']}]: #{x['footnote'].gsub(/\n\n(\s*.)/,"\n\n\t\\1")}")
	input.gsub!(/\(\*#{e_sh x['orig']}\*\)/m,"[^#{x['title']}]")
}
puts input.strip + "\n\n#{o.join("\n\n")}\n"

I’m in San Francisco for an AOL Tech code jam right now, so I don’t have a lot of time to thoroughly test this. Please let me know about any bugs that need fixing.

If you’re in San Francisco and like coffee or beer, hit me up on Twitter. If you’re here for Macworld, then you’d better be at my “40 Tips in 40 Minutes” talk with David Sparks and Merlin Mann on Thursday!

Related posts:

1. A better System Service for Evernote clipping — with MultiMarkdown
2. Auto-convert your inline Markdown links to references
3. A System Service for to. url shortening

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at A Service for writing MultiMarkdown footnotes inline

Fixed

• More careful when stripping javascript from the document
• More responsive to a wider range of files/locations (Lion-only)
• Moved TOC to toolbar button
• Increased file size limit, offers a warning on large files

New

• Save/Copy as RTF
• Word count for selection
• Word repetition visualization
• Readability Statistics
• Keyboard navigation
  • help hud (press “h” in preview) for navigation keyboard shortcuts
• Option to disable SmartyPants typography extension
• Updated multimarkdown executable to development version
  • Better handling of HTML5 elements
  • Fix for bold/emphasis handling in complex blocks

The new location of the Table of Contents avoids a lot of overlap concerns. When there are headers (h2-h6) in the document, a button will appear next to the gear menu (to the left) and clicking it will slide up a list of those headers. Clicking a header in the list will navigate the document to that header and temporarily highlight it.

The increased file size limit will allow massive text files to be loaded, presenting a warning about decreased performance one time.

Save/Copy as RTF should be handy for people composing emails and other documents in Marked. It will maintain most aspects of the current custom style when creating the Rich Text version. The Copy as RTF has a little trouble with blockquotes right now, and I’m not sure I can do much about it, but beyond that it’s a quick way to get your preview into another document.

Word count for selection is pretty darn nifty: when you make a selection with the mouse, a small popup at the mouse cursor location will tell you the word and character count for just the selected text.

Word repetition visualization allows you to see words repeated by paragraph or across the entire document. You can click on a bolded (repeated) word and dim everything else so that it’s easy to see where the repetitions are located. It uses a stemming algorithm so that various forms of the same word are dectected, including plurals and conjugations.

The keyboard navigation is fairly extensive, with home-key controls for scrolling, the ability to use up to nine numeric bookmarks for rapid return, navigation by header and more. Pressing “h” in the preview will show all available shortcuts.

Fletcher Penney has been really great about providing some updates to the MultiMarkdown processor to handle a few edge cases. People who’ve experienced rendering anomolies should be quite satisfied!

Readability statistics are experimental, but Marked attempts to provide a grade level and Fog Index for your document.

There are a few new options in Preferences to cover some more requests for control over the preview and rendering. I’ve also updated the help system and added a Markdown reference you can keep open while working.

It’s a big release with a little version number… I’ll update the Marked website and post here as soon as it’s approved. Special thanks to the beta testers and their great feedback on this version. Also, if you buy Marked now, all of these features will be yours for free when the update comes out!

Related posts:

1. Marked is on the Mac App Store
2. Marked 1.3.1, more MultiMarkdown goodies
3. The second Marked giveaway!

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Marked 1.3.2 in review

There’s a new version of Marked on the horizon with a few new features, and one a little down the road with built-in support for more applications (that aren’t necessarily straight text editors). Enter for a promo code (by leaving a comment on this post) and you’ll have a chance at a free copy ($3.99). In addition to a fine app, winners will, of course, get free updates as they come out. Winners will be drawn at random from the comments on this post at noon on Saturday, December 3rd. Good luck!

Related posts:

1. Marked 1.3 drawing winners
2. Marked 1.3 released, plus 5 free copies!
3. Marked is on the Mac App Store

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at The second Marked giveaway!

The latest version in development includes some really exciting new features:

• A HUD panel shows a list of labels that have been defined in your document that can be used when creating links, footnotes, citations, etc. This can be used to remind yourself of which label you used previously to define an element by reference. Another HUD panel shows word, paragraph, and character counts for your documents.
• A group of new key commands for selecting and moving parts of your document around without using the mouse, as well as for creating and cleaning up lists automatically.
• Composer now uses UTIs to define which documents it can open/save. This will have several behind-the-scenes benefits when it comes to saving, opening, previewing, and indexing documents for Spotlight searches.
• Significant improvements to responsiveness when working with long documents (e.g. using the ToC to scroll).
• Improved support for font-size and font-family in stylesheets. These will help my own themes work more smoothly.
• Plenty more!

Picking up a license now gets you free access to all of the new features when they’re released. Comment below for a chance at one of the five licenses (App Store US $9.99). Winners will be drawn at random (by the Giveaway Robot) on Thursday, December 1st at noon.

Notification is via email, so be sure to use a valid address. It’s also helpful to use a unique name (first and last preferred, but anything to help avoid duplicates) so announcements of the winners don’t get the other “Rob” or “Jim” all excited, only to be disappointed when they figure out it wasn’t them.

There are still a few more (very exciting) giveaways coming up over the next couple of days, so keep checking back. There’s no rule against entering for all of them (once each, please, or the robot gets angry. You don’t want to see him angry), so keep at it!

Related posts:

1. Mac App Giveaway: PDFpen
2. Marked is on the Mac App Store
3. Break up your text documents

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Mac App Giveaway: MultiMarkdown Composer

Marked 1.3.1 includes a few bugfixes but adds a surprising number of new features for an incremental version bump. See the changelog for a complete list, but here are the highlights:

• new icon!
• handles larger files
• recognizes CSS: and Base Header Level: metadata
• locates embedded scripts and includes them in the preview
• more keyboard shortcuts
• quick toggle for custom processor on a per-document basis.

If you’re already a Marked user, the update is in the Mac App Store right now. If you’re not, and you like the Markdown, you should probably check it out.

Related posts:

1. Marked 1.3.2 is live!
2. Marked is on the Mac App Store
3. Marked 1.3 released, plus 5 free copies!

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Marked 1.3.1, more MultiMarkdown goodies

I’ve been playing around with some themes for MultiMarkdown Composer, and thought I’d share a few that are turning out half decently. MultiMarkdown Composer’s syntax highlighting uses an extended version of the Peg Markdown Highlight format. You can add themes to ~/Library/Application Support/MultiMarkdown Composer/Styles (create it if it doesn’t exist) and they’ll show up in the Appearances preferences of MultiMarkdown Composer.

I wouldn’t call my initial attempts “awesome,” but they should be a good starting point for some ideas of your own. Note that you can add transparency to colors using an 8-digit hex format where the first two digits represent the alpha opacity. Take ‘em for a spin, let me know what you think, and be sure to share any modifications!

Another note… you can use these themes with editors like Mou, too, but you need to remove the extra MultiMarkdown-specific syntax at the end of each theme (tables, footnotes, etc.).

Related posts:

1. Mac App Giveaway: MultiMarkdown Composer
2. MultiMarkdown Composer hits the App Store
3. Quick Link: Bro Show #85

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at A few themes for MultiMarkdown Composer

Fletcher Penney’s¹ latest project, MultiMarkdown Composer, is now available in the App Store. It provides a text editing environment with a full set of MultiMarkdown features. Unlike most of the other editors in this area, it auto-continues lists (ordered and unordered) and handles auto-pairing and wrapping. I’m working on a full review to post very soon, but I wanted to let you all know about it as soon as possible!

By the way, while it has one built in, it works even better with Marked as its preview! Check out MultiMarkdown Composer in the App Store ($7.99 intro price).

Related posts:

1. Mac App Giveaway: MultiMarkdown Composer
2. A few themes for MultiMarkdown Composer
3. Quick Link: Bro Show #85

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at MultiMarkdown Composer hits the App Store

Marked 1.3 just made it up onto the Mac App Store! It incorporates a few fixes and some cool new features. So cool, in fact, that I raised the price to a whopping $3.99. I’m hoping the fact that it now functions as a mini web development tool and handles multiple custom styles makes it worth the extra buck to other folks, too.

The full changelog is up on the newly-revamped Marked website. Be sure to check out the snazzy new introductory video on the main page, too.

I’m thrilled that Marked has exceeded my initial sales expectations by 50x as of yesterday. As a thank you, I’m doing my own giveaway: 5 promo codes for a free copy of Marked. If you already own it, enter anyway and–if you win–give your promo code to a friend or family member you think could benefit from a full-featured Markdown utility! Just leave a comment about Marked below and I’ll do my usual super-random selection of 5 winners on Tuesday, October 11th at noon Central. Good luck!

By the way, if you want to file a bug report, suggest a feature or ask a question, be sure to visit the support site.

Related posts:

1. The second Marked giveaway!
2. Marked Bonus Pack fix and Marked 1.3 progress
3. Marked 1.3.1, more MultiMarkdown goodies

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Marked 1.3 released, plus 5 free copies!

The Bonus Pack currently includes scripts and commands for interacting with Marked from TextMate, Sublime Text 2, Emacs and Vim, as well as a System Service and AppleScript for opening the current file from Byword, TextEdit, Notational Velocity/nvALT and a fallback for just about any AppleScript-able application.

Once everything is smoothed out to my satisfaction, the Service will likely be included as part of the Marked application, but for now it’s a separate download. The next version of Marked (1.3) is in final beta testing with a few Snow Leopard bugs left to squash. I should be submitting it to the Mac App Store within the week.

Version 1.3 updates to the latest MultiMarkdown build, adds Lion Fullscreen, opens any file extension, handles multiple custom styles, adds a few nice touches (including MathJax) to previews and more. I’m really excited about it, I just want to make sure that all of the new features don’t bring an equal number of new bugs with them.

One feature I’m especially excited about in 1.3 is the ability to watch a custom style’s CSS file in addition to the Markdown (or HTML) file you’re editing. Not only does this make creating custom styles much easier, it also opens Marked up to being to web designers what it already is to Markdown writers: a live preview for your HTML/CSS, no matter what editor you’re working in. HTML5/CSS3 compatibility combined with the custom processor (which can be set to run the file through Ruby or PHP, too) makes it a handy addition to a web development toolkit. I’m using it to design a revamp to the Marked website right now, in fact.

If you haven’t checked out Marked yet, take a look at the Marked website. I went overboard collecting all of the nice things people were writing and made the page pretty ugly with the press section, but I’m working that out right now. I promise.

Related posts:

1. Introducing the Marked Bonus Pack
2. Marked Bonus Pack 1.2
3. Get Marked: 50% off for Black Friday

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Marked Bonus Pack fix and Marked 1.3 progress

I left it as the Perl version instead of the new PEG version because it was easier to embed, and allows me to force “snippet” rendering. Modify as you see fit, but this version makes a nice, neat package that does MultiMarkdown rendering without the need for any other installation. I thought others might find it useful, especially as an addition to Marked and nvALT capabilities, so here it is!

Download the service as part of the Markdown Service Tools package. See the how-to page on Installing System Services if you have questions!

Related posts:

1. Some Chrome love for the Markdown Service Tools
2. Quick Tip: clean up your MultiMarkdown tables
3. Auto-convert your inline Markdown links to references

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at New Markdown Service tool: HTML to Clipboard

Marked 1.2 also adds niceties such as search, GitHub styles for editing readme.md files, and the ability to actually copy and paste from the preview and source views using standard shortcut keys (sorry that wasn’t there to begin with).

Here’s hoping that I fixed more than I broke in the process, and that you all enjoy the new release! Check out the Marked website for more info, and see the release notes for the full (and very long) list of what’s new!

Also, I’ll soon be unveiling a library of user-contributed custom styles, tips, tricks, scripts and System Services for making the most of Marked. If you have any of these that you’d like to contribute (with attribution, of course), let me know!

Related posts:

1. Marked 1.3 released, plus 5 free copies!
2. Marked Bonus Pack fix and Marked 1.3 progress
3. The second Marked giveaway!

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Marked 1.2 is out!

Well, my “secret” project is up and out: Marked was approved by Apple today for sale in the Mac App Store. It’s a Markdown previewer which can watch any text file for changes, updating the HTML preview whenever you save it. It adds Markdown preview to any text editor.

Marked has four built-in styles to suit most tastes, but you can also create your own custom CSS and tell Marked where to find it. Just export a document with lots of markup in it with the CSS embedded (check the box at the bottom of the Save dialog) and you’ll have a full structure to work with.

Marked can also print and print to PDF, and it maintains styling (without backgrounds) so you get professional, finished documents from your Markdown. As mentioned above, it also exports to HTML, with or without the preview styles. You can copy the HTML source as a snippet from your current document with a keystroke at any time (Command-Shift-C).

Marked’s preview panel can be “floated,” keeping it above all other application windows. You can also set a transparency level on it and have it become translucent when it’s not the foreground application.

There are document statistics, too, so if your text editor doesn’t have line, word and character counts, Marked has you covered. The word count is in the bottom bar of the window (you can hide it in preferences, if you want) and clicking it will give you a popup with other statistics.

I’m excited to have pulled this off. It’s not a huge application and it’s a really simple idea, but I got some good Objective-C experience and am proud of the result. Hopefully it will sell a few copies, too…

Check it out on the Mac App Store!

Related posts:

1. Marked 1.3.1, more MultiMarkdown goodies
2. Get Marked: 50% off for Black Friday
3. Marked Bonus Pack fix and Marked 1.3 progress

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Marked is on the Mac App Store

The new Service adds way better tag handling, MultiMarkdown-style metadata hooks for Notebook, tags and more, and generally amped up the parser and error handling, as well as the Evernote side of things. Check it out at NSUserView. Thanks Martin, nice work!

Related posts:

1. A better System Service for Evernote clipping — with MultiMarkdown
2. Antique Safari Reader hack update with Evernote goodness
3. Clippable to Evernote Snow Leopard Service

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Taking the Markdown to Evernote service further

The table syntax in MultiMarkdown is intuitive and can be really fast to work with. Much faster than coding HTML tables, to be sure. Unless you’re pretty religious about your spacing, though, the plain text version can get out of hand pretty quickly. If only there were some way to make them pretty in one click…

You’ve already got the tools, I would imagine, but you might not have known they were there. I didn’t notice until tonight, but I don’t work with tables much in MultiMarkdown. In the “Utilities” folder of the MultiMarkdown installation there’s a Perl script that will do amazing things to messy MultiMarkdown tables. The more I play with it, the more I think that Fletcher Penney is a genius.

My advice? Make it into a System Service and use it everywhere. Just open up the file at ~/Library/Application Support/MultiMarkdown/Utilities/table_cleanup.pl in your favorite text editor. Open Automator and create a new Service, dragging the Run Shell Script action into the right panel. Set it to Perl, accept text, replace text and copy the contents of the script into the action. Save it and run it on some table text! If you’re running any of the Markdown Service Tools, you can name it “md — Clean Up Tables” and it will fit right in with your Services menu.

Play around with it, it’s pretty amazing. You can control certain aspects of the results by messing with the header rows, and it even centers text in centered columns (:----:). Thank you, Fletcher Penney.

Related posts:

1. A few themes for MultiMarkdown Composer
2. Taking the Markdown to Evernote service further
3. New Markdown Service tool: HTML to Clipboard

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Quick Tip: clean up your MultiMarkdown tables

Control-Right and Control-Left are already set up in the Markdown bundle to indent and outdent lines within lists. These two macros just add Control-Up and Control-Down for quickly shifting the order of a list. They only work with single lines; if you want to move a chunk of lines, you’ll want to use the old select and hit Control-Command-Up/Down method.

You can download the TextMate List Macros from here, but for more details, check out the video I added to the Blogsmith Bundle Video Site.

Here’s a quick, semi-related tip: TextMate’s Web Preview running through MultiMarkdown 3 is wicked fast. There’s no visible latency. It’s practically an nvALT killer for people who primarily use nvALT for its MultiMarkdown preview. Definitely give it a shot. Fletcher Penney’s video on setup and usage is all you need. Well, that and MultiMarkdown 3. By the way, the next release of nvALT deals much better with custom MultiMarkdown 3 installs. Coming soon.

Related posts:

1. AutoTag2: smarter tagging for TextMate and WordPress
2. nvALT 2.1 progress report
3. New Markdown Service tool: HTML to Clipboard

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at A couple of TextMate Macros for Markdown lists