CommonMark simplifications

[MightyCreak]

I open this issue to discuss CommonMark simplifications.

CommonMark, a stricter implementation of Markdown, is a text format that is meant to give a way to write structured documents and be easy enough to parse it and generate a rich-text view (like with HTML). Riot uses CommonMark, but the users rarely writes essays in Riot, so some features from Riot could be removed or changed and give the user a more intuitive way of writing formatted texts.

• List formatting: only use "-" and remove the characters "*" and "+" (see explanation)

Edit: use "CommonMark" instead of "Markdown"

[MightyCreak]

List formatting: only use "-" and remove the characters "*" and "+"

To make a list, I would suggest to use only "-" and remove the characters "*" and "+".
The rational behind that is that the different characters was there because in a huge document it allows to use different symbols when you have nested lists, like that:

* item 1
  - subitem 1
    + subsubitem 1
    + subsubitem 2
  - subitem 2
* item 2

That is very useful.. in a document. But much less in a short text message.
But why keeping only "-" and not one of the other characters, you say? Simply because it often happens to start a message with "+" or "", for instance "" is often used in text message to say that you didn't write a word corrcetly.
*correctly
And "+" is often use in a text message when you just want to add a point to your previous text.
+it's really weird to use "+" as a list character, so it becomes more disturbing than anything.
And finally, the character "-" is faster to write on US keyboards (no shift key to press).

But keep in mind that removing "*" and "+" doesn't prevent from doing nested lists. It's the starting spaces that makes a subitem, so the example above would give the exact same result written like that:

* item 1
  * subitem 1
    * subsubitem 1
    * subsubitem 2
  * subitem 2
* item 2

[t3chguy]

We use CommonMark, see commonmark.org/help
its a strict specification of Markdown, its unlikely a switch to a custom flavour would be done as then things might get ambigious between clients, this way anyone can load in a CommonMark lib and have it work exactly the same

[MightyCreak]

Hmmm... I see.
I could be interesting to make our own MessageMark that would be an even stricter markdown specification for messaging apps. But I guess Riot devs have other things to do.

Should I close this issue?

[uhoreg]

The proper fix is probably to get the new composer working properly for newbies, and then those who want markdown can use that if they want to.

[MightyCreak]

It's not about newbie vs pro-user. It's about proposing the right tool for the right job. The point being that using different characters to make lists is completely overkill in the context of an instant messaging app.

I personally like using Markdown/CommonMark formatting for my messages, I don't especially want a composer where I would have to click on a button every time I want to format something. Slack don't provide any composer at all and there's no complaints so far, but they've stripped the unnecessary parts.

I don't say Riot has to do exactly the same (for instance users can't make lists in Slack, and that's a shame), but it's not a reason to go on the opposite side of the spectrum.

[turt2live]

ftr, I quite like the various options to form a list. I've used differing symbols to indicate different meaning to some plain text readers, and I normally default to asterisks myself.

[lampholder]

I like simplicity, but I haven't ever been tripped up by the multiple-bullet options.

Not least because the *correction convention doesn't actually trigger a bullet (you'd have to put a space between your asterisk and your typo-fix).

I suggest we leave this here and if people do find themselves tripping up over the complexity they can upvote.

[MightyCreak]

You're right, *correction doesn't trigger a formatting. Weird... I was sure I had this problem.
But there is still the '+ something' that triggers a list, which is unexpected.

I've encountered this issue a couple of time, but I've also seen some less-techy friends having the issue as well, but not understanding why it became that.

That being said.. If we had message edition, that issue would not really be an issue.

[t3chguy]

Closing in favour of element-hq/element-meta#330 as the more general markdown dialect discussion