Mastodon can't just choose to not add markdown anymore.

[Freeplayg]

I guess this would make more sense as a discussion.

Mastodon is the biggest Fediverse platform. And with every single other Fediverse platform already supporting basic markdown, new and old... So, so much information gets lost. Bold, italics, etc. have so much meaning and can dramatically change how a sentence is read.

Not even blockquotes are visible on Mastodon, it's all just plain text. How am I supposed to know that it's a quote? You can't.

I love this platform, and don't want these disconnects between platforms. It doesn't matter if you just don't like it. You can't just choose to not add it anymore.

[wizzwizz4]

You don't need to be able to type it, so supporting Markdown isn't necessary – but you do need to be able to display posts as-written when they're simple rich text.

Compare the above, with different emphasis:

You don't need to be able to type it, so supporting Markdown isn't necessary – but you do need to be able to display posts as-written when they're simple rich text.

The meaning's quite different! Most people using social media aren't thinking about formatting incompatibility when sending messages to each other.

[Andre601]

Agree on the fact that Mastodon shouldn't just use plain text rendering for the content, as that breaks text entirely.

Here's an example from an instance using glitch-soc, which adds Markdown and HTML formatting support:

And for comparison is here the same post but viewed with the official Android app:

Weirdly enough are embedded links supported, but lists aren't. Not even a basic line break is used in that case and instead everything is squeezed together in an unreadable mess.

I sadly can't test how other vanilla Mastodon instances render this post (URL is here. Would appreciate if someone can share the result), but I would assume it's probably the same?

Either way, even if Markdown wouldn't be supported (Let's be honest: It should. It's way to good to not implement), should posts at least look the same across instances and not break appart if one doesn't use the same version and/or extensions/additions.

IF Markdown would ever be added should there be an option to see a preview of the content, so that you can correct wrong formatting before posting.

[raf64flo]

Here is the rendering using Tusky app:

[randytayler]

I love the idea of adding markdown. I don't know why Twitter never implemented it. Seems like a straightforward feature to accept underscores and double-asterisks (like GitHub does here) - I'd love to understand why it wouldn't be straightforward.

[Freeplayg]

I've made an issue for it here btw #18958

Please upvote it!!

[McPringle]

Markdown is supported by Elk, too:

It looks like nearly all other 3rd party clients support Markdown and the Mastodon web client itself is the last one missing this feature.

[renchap]

Mastodon supports rendering rich text statuses since 4.2 (or 4.1?)

Authoring rich text statuses is on the roadmap, we looked at using the feature from Glich SOC but is has some issues that we have not been able to solve yet.

[McPringle]

Mastodon supports rendering rich text statuses since 4.2 (or 4.1?)

The original Mastodon web client in v4.2.3 (latest, released two weeks ago) does not support Markdown (this issue is about Markdown, not a HTML subset or other formats):

Source: https://fosstodon.org/@McPringle/111601401605446538

[renchap]

Rich text statuses are in ActivityPub should be exchanged as HTML, and then Mastodon will render them properly.

There are no plans to support rendering text posts as Markdown

[McPringle]

I highly appreciate all the work done by all the open source developers. I'm myself an open source developer (mainly Java and Kotlin projects), so I know that it means to use the rare spare time to contribute to OSS projects. So please take my following words not as a complaint, but as my personal opinion with my above background.

My opinion is exactly the same as the OP wrote in the title of this discussion:

Mastodon can't just choose to not add markdown anymore.

In the last weeks I tested several Mastodon clients for my phone and my desktop PC. The only one I found not supporting the rendering of Markdown is the original Mastodon client. I respect the decisions of all the people managing this open source project. I know they put all their heart and love into this project. But I don't understand the decision not to support Markdown. To me, it feels narrow-minded. Markdown is kind of a standard and supported in so many tools all over the internet.

For me, the main reason why I use 3rd party applications on my phone and desktop is the lack of multi-account-support. I have a private account and in addition, I manage two community accounts. The second biggest benefit of using 3rd party apps is the support of Markdown rendering. I use Markdown all day long. I know a lot of people who are using Markdown a lot.

I respect your decision, but I also regret it. I hope that you will revise it.

[scottdotjs]

Hi @renchap,

When you say:

Rich text statuses are in ActivityPub should be exchanged as HTML, and then Mastodon will render them properly.

What does that imply for the end user? That I should be able to paste rich text into the client and the formatting will be honored? I've just tried doing that on the Mastodon web UI (using formatted text from the preview here in the comment composer), but it doesn't seem to be the case.

[renchap]

Mastodon does not allow writing rich text at the moment. It only supports displaying it for statuses that have been created with other software and that have been federated.

[scottdotjs]

Thanks for the clarification 👍🏻

Edited to remove my question, just saw you answered it in a post above.