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| 1 | +# Markup Plugin for RapidWeaver |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +I’m big fan of lightweight markup languages, popular with server-side blogging |
| 4 | +software such as [Movable |
| 5 | +Type](http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/) and |
| 6 | +[Wordpress](http://wordpress.org/): they’re perfect for |
| 7 | +writing Web pages, where you want mostly freeform text, and when formatted |
| 8 | +text controls sometimes get in your way more than they help. Since [RapidWeaver](https://realmacsoftware.com/rapidweaver/) uses |
| 9 | +a rich-text control for styling text that I just couldn’t get used to, I wrote |
| 10 | +a little plugin named Markup so you can write in a markup language instead. It |
| 11 | +simply adds a _Markup Language_ menu item below RapidWeaver’s HTML menu item, |
| 12 | +where you can pick from a small but excellent set of markup languages, such |
| 13 | +as: |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | + * John Gruber’s [Markdown](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/) ([syntax](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax)), |
| 16 | + * Textism and Brad Choate’s [Textile](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textile_\(markup_language\)) ([syntax](http://www.bradchoate.com/mt/docs/mtmanual_textile2.html)), and |
| 17 | + * David Grudl's [Texy](http://texy.info/en/) ([syntax](http://texy.info/en/syntax)). |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +For the UNIX wizards, you can also have bash markup: i.e. markup that’s |
| 20 | +filtered through the UNIX /bin/bash shell that’s installed on every Mac OS X |
| 21 | +computer. It can also add “smart” punctuation to your Web pages via [SmartyPants](http://daringfireball.net/projects/smartypants/), if |
| 22 | +you’re one of those folks (like me) who appreciates seeing proper em-dashes, |
| 23 | +ellipses and open quotes. |
| 24 | + |
| 25 | +There’s a ton of improvements that I still have to make to it, but hey, |
| 26 | +something is better than nothing! |
| 27 | + |
| 28 | +## Download |
| 29 | + |
| 30 | +You can download the Markup plugin at the GitHub releases page, at https://github.com/andrep/rw-markup/releases. |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +Markup 0.16 may also even work with RapidWeaver 3.2 and Mac OS X 10.3.9, although |
| 33 | +that's not officially supported. |
| 34 | + |
| 35 | +If you do find any bugs, just email me: I’ll add it to my to- |
| 36 | +do list. Ditto for feature suggestions, for which I’m sure you have many |
| 37 | +ideas! |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | +## Tips and Tricks |
| 40 | + |
| 41 | + * You can use the `bash` markup language to treat the markup text as a UNIX shell script, which will be run and have its standard output emitted. For instance, simply type in `Last updated on date +'%A, %B %Y, %e'` into any RapidWeaver styled text area, select the “`date +'%A, %B %Y, %e'`” bit, and choose the `bash` markup language from the Format -> Markup Language menu. |
| 42 | + |
| 43 | +## Developers |
| 44 | + |
| 45 | +The source code is on GitHub, at https://github.com/andrep/rw-markup. |
| 46 | + |
| 47 | +## Other Markup Plugins |
| 48 | + |
| 49 | +It seems that I’m not alone in wanting to add markup support for RapidWeaver. At |
| 50 | +least two other enterprising developers have their own markup-esque plugins |
| 51 | +available for RapidWeaver, which you may prefer: |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | + * plessl’s [Markdown plugin](http://archive.org/web/20080828003902/http://plesslweb.ch/2006/08/13/markdown-plugin-09/) (with accompanying [source code](http://archive.org/web/20080828003902/http://plesslweb.ch/2006/08/24/source-code-of-markdownplugin-091-for-rapidweaver/)\--yeah for open source!). Note that plessl’s plugin takes a different approach to mine: whereas plessl’s Markdown plugin offers a new RapidWeaver page style, my Markup plugin enables you to use markup text in any RapidWeaver styled text area, such as the sidebar for each page. |
| 54 | + * Loghound’s [PlusKit](http://www.loghound.com/pluskit/), which offers a slightly different approach to markup text (via explicit `<markdown>` and `</markdown>` tags), and also does a lot more besides that (such as being to merge other page styles into the current page, ala [Blocks 2](http://www.yourhead.com/blocks/index.html)). |
| 55 | + |
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