python-markdown-discuss

[Python-markdown-discuss] Looking for advices to write a markdown plugin

[Alexandre L. <new...@al...>]

Hello,

I wrote a simple text-publishing Django application enabling per 
paragraph comments. It splits a texts into chunks and let people comment 
them. The project is hosted at http://github.com/aleray/close-commenting 
and a demo is visible there: 
http://closecommenting.stdin.fr/one-possible-scenario-for-a-collective-future.html

It uses markdown in its back-end to format the texts and right now they 
are split according to their first level HTML tags (see 
http://github.com/aleray/close-commenting/blob/master/closecommenting/models.py 
line 93)

I'm looking for writing a markdown extensions that would allow one to 
arbitrary tell the parser semantic units to comment on instead of 
relying on the document structure. For instance, in some case it might 
make more sens to comment two <p/> together, or to have two comments in 
one <p/>.

A quick fix is to enclose units in <div/> but it is not very elegant. My 
first idea was to make a proper syntax was to add a "§" glyph to 
indicate a commentable section. eg.

§ Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Maecenas 
hendrerit mattis faucibus. Vivamus auctor sollicitudin urna, et 
fringilla purus auctor id. Duis laoreet feugiat magna, ac consequat 
lectus sagittis vitae.
§ Phasellus non egestas urna. Morbi eget lacus felis. Vivamus molestie 
est quis diam feugiat ac faucibus justo vulputate. Mauris sed lectus 
arcu. Fusce euismod suscipit ligula a convallis.
§ ...

or 2 paragraphs together

§ Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Maecenas 
hendrerit mattis faucibus. Vivamus auctor sollicitudin urna, et 
fringilla purus auctor id. Duis laoreet feugiat magna, ac consequat 
lectus sagittis vitae.
§ Phasellus non egestas urna. Morbi eget lacus felis. Vivamus molestie 
est quis diam feugiat ac faucibus justo vulputate. Mauris sed lectus 
arcu. Fusce euismod suscipit ligula a convallis. Donec iaculis augue sit 
amet magna tempor at auctor tellus vehicula. Maecenas ac leo justo. 
Phasellus laoreet hendrerit mauris, vitae scelerisque justo sollicitudin 
sed. Etiam molestie sodales leo at feugiat. In hac habitasse platea 
dictumst. Pellentesque at enim sed ante mollis fermentum. Donec quis 
enim dictum nibh fermentum imperdiet.

Nullam urna orci, iaculis non porttitor at, ultricies dictum metus. 
Quisque viverra lacus eu ante viverra blandit. Etiam tempor, ante ac 
tincidunt lobortis, arcu risus fringilla justo, non tempus velit nisl 
fermentum erat. Etiam semper, sapien sed condimentum elementum, magna 
neque viverra dolor, blandit suscipit arcu mauris porta lorem. Nulla 
orci massa, ultrices ut congue nec, pretium aliquam tortor. Donec 
imperdiet laoreet purus ac luctus. Sed sit amet ante tellus, at sodales 
metus. Praesent scelerisque, sem ut porta rutrum, lorem ante ornare 
diam, pharetra feugiat orci odio id nisl. Praesent imperdiet pharetra 
pulvinar. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. 
Quisque lobortis sollicitudin placerat. Maecenas ut pharetra purus. 
Maecenas sit amet magna ac dui euismod accumsan ac id ligula. Curabitur 
sit amet lorem non purus vehicula mollis accumsan at tellus. Maecenas 
consectetur posuere laoreet. Quisque risus leo, iaculis sit amet aliquam 
ac, ultricies sed lectus. Nam non libero ligula. Nullam volutpat 
tincidunt tortor non venenatis. Nam ultricies lacus a leo porta 
tincidunt fringilla quam hendrerit. In imperdiet imperdiet nibh, a 
bibendum erat interdum in.

§ ...

However it gets more complex with other HTML elements such as lists, 
headers etc.

Do you have any idea on how I could implement such a syntax?

Best,

Alexandre Leray

Re: [Python-markdown-discuss] Looking for advices to write a markdown plugin

[Yuri T. <qar...@gm...>]

> However it gets more complex with other HTML elements such as lists,
> headers etc.
>
> Do you have any idea on how I could implement such a syntax?

I'll be happy to offer suggestions on the implementation, but right
now I am not quite sure what you want to achieve. What do you want
your output to look like? Do you want the parser to insert divs based
on where it finds §s? What do you _want_ it to do with lists, etc?

In particular, do you see §s as separators breaking up your input into
chunks, or do you see them as labels that get attached to natural HTML
units (paragraphs, list items, etc.) marking them as commentable?

  - yuri

Re: [Python-markdown-discuss] Looking for advices to write a markdown plugin

[Alexandre L. <new...@al...>]

Hello Yuri,

thanks a lot for your interest.
I think it would be more like separators, as I don't have the need to 
exclude certain parts from being commented.

Best,

Alex

On 02/17/2010 07:43 PM, Yuri Takhteyev wrote:
> In particular, do you see §s as separators breaking up your input into
> chunks, or do you see them as labels that get attached to natural HTML
> units (paragraphs, list items, etc.) marking them as commentable?
>    

Re: [Python-markdown-discuss] Looking for advices to write a markdown plugin

[Ian Stokes-R. <ijs...@hk...>]

Hello Alexandre,

On 2/17/10 10:56 AM, Alexandre Leray wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I wrote a simple text-publishing Django application enabling per 
> paragraph comments. It splits a texts into chunks and let people comment 
> them. The project is hosted at http://github.com/aleray/close-commenting 
> and a demo is visible there: 
> http://closecommenting.stdin.fr/one-possible-scenario-for-a-collective-future.html
>   

Depending on your goals, you may find that simply using a system such as
ReFrameit will provide similar functionality.

Ian

-- 
Ian Stokes-Rees, PhD                       W: http://abitibi.sbgrid.org
ijs...@hk...               T: +1.617.432.5608 x75
NEBioGrid, Harvard Medical School          C: +1.617.331.5993

Re: [Python-markdown-discuss] Looking for advices to write a markdown plugin

[Alexandre L. <new...@al...>]

Dear Ian,

thanks for pointing me to this project, I didn't know it and it seems 
very interesting!
However I don't think it covers my needs as I'd like to keep the 
comments along with the texts.

Best,

Alexandre

On 02/17/2010 09:42 PM, Ian Stokes-Rees wrote:
> Depending on your goals, you may find that simply using a system such as
> ReFrameit will provide similar functionality.
>    

Re: [Python-markdown-discuss] Looking for advices to write a markdown plugin

[Yuri T. <qar...@gm...>]

> thanks a lot for your interest.
> I think it would be more like separators, as I don't have the need to
> exclude certain parts from being commented.

Using a single separator to sometimes break up paragraphs into smaller
units and sometimes merge them into larger ones is going to get ugly
quickly... I recommend thinking of an approach that will ensure that
commentable sections do not break the boundaries of HTML tags. I.e.,
if a section includes the start tag for an HTML block, it should
include the end tag as well. It also sounds like you want to have
commentable section overlap. So, a single character separator won't
work. You will at least need a pair of characters - one to open a
commentable section and one to close.

Anyway, if I were you, I would focus on identifying and re-using
existing document structure. E.g., allowing people to attach comments
to sections/headings, paragraphs, list items, sentences, quotations,
etc. If this isn't enough, then you can think of two separate markups
- one for identifying sub-paragraph sections, and another one for
grouping paragraphs.

  - yuri

Re: [Python-markdown-discuss] Looking for advices to write a markdown plugin

[Alexandre L. <new...@al...>]

Thanks Yuri, much appreciate your help

On 02/18/2010 06:19 PM, Yuri Takhteyev wrote:
> Anyway, if I were you, I would focus on identifying and re-using
> existing document structure. E.g., allowing people to attach comments
> to sections/headings, paragraphs, list items, sentences, quotations,
> etc.

I agree with you I have to work on the HTML structure. For instance I 
recently uploaded an interview formatted as a big <dl/> list. In its 
current development our software considered that definition list to be a 
single element to comment since it was enclosed by a single <dl></dl> 
tag whereas it would make much more sense to break it on each <dt/> 
</dd> pair.

> If this isn't enough, then you can think of two separate markups
> - one for identifying sub-paragraph sections, and another one for
> grouping paragraphs.
>
>    - yuri
>    

The previous solution doesn't solve the arbitrary slicing issue, and we 
will need to define a syntax for that. It is still unclear to me what 
those markups could be. Do you have anything in mind?

Best,

Alexandre

Re: [Python-markdown-discuss] Looking for advices to write a markdown plugin

[Alexandre L. <new...@al...>]

Thanks Yuri, much appreciate your help

On 02/18/2010 06:19 PM, Yuri Takhteyev wrote:
> Anyway, if I were you, I would focus on identifying and re-using
> existing document structure. E.g., allowing people to attach comments
> to sections/headings, paragraphs, list items, sentences, quotations,
> etc.

I agree with you I have to work on the HTML structure. For instance I 
recently uploaded an interview formatted as a big <dl/> list. In its 
current development our software considered that definition list to be a 
single element to comment since it was enclosed by a single <dl></dl> 
tag whereas it would make much more sense to break it on each <dt/> 
</dd> pair.

> If this isn't enough, then you can think of two separate markups
> - one for identifying sub-paragraph sections, and another one for
> grouping paragraphs.
>
>    - yuri
>    

The previous solution doesn't solve the arbitrary slicing issue, and we 
will need to define a syntax for that. It is still unclear to me what 
those markups could be. Do you have anything in mind?

Best,

Alexandre