High on the Suggestions & Requests list, at least for me.

Adding Rich Text, #MarkDown support would :

* make post much nicer on the eyes (for those who care to use it, an optional feature)
* Make text EASIER to read, for everyone (assuming active posters used it)
* and make #Fediverse another degree BETTER than the corporate networks.

Could it be done?

* YES, it is already supported in some cases -- in GlitchSocial and Pleroma instances.
* The GlitchSoc source code is available, and this could be back-ported to mastodon saving much effort.

And -- What about the CLIENT side to support this?

* Some clients already DO support this; the snapshot below shows a pretty Test post, made via and displayed in Pinafore -- https://pinafore.social
* Husky Android client has Rich Text support built in too.
* GlitchSoc and Pleroma FE also support it natively.

See the image in this post -- a Test with various Rich Text features applied, all done via a GlitchSocial instance where a friend has an account.

What is MarkDown ? How could I use it?

Markdown is a simplified and easy to learn text formatting system that is widely used in the Net.

It replaces clumsy HTML MarkUp tags with simpler to use ones.

Wiki : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown

Official site : https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/

#Qoto #Requests #wishlist #QotoJournal

@design_RG Markdown support would be pretty cool! Though it would be more useful if we had a better UI for expanding posts when we read it. With the relatively narrow column based layout it doesnt lend well to formatting.

With that said markdown wouldnt work on apps, it would only work on the web interface.

It might actually be doable similar to how we do mathjax, by post-processing with javascript. this might be a more doable feature than most if the javascript is already out there.

@freemo
> With the relatively narrow column based layout it doesnt lend well to formatting.

Narrow Columns? in most places, but not on my machines... (AWI on Steroids for me}

Screenshot : https://i.postimg.cc/K8jwB9Gh/Screenshot-2020-05-25-Qoto-Mastodon-recompress.png

Husky has it working for a Mobile client, also Pinafore, via web, both desktop and mobile.

@design_RG Fair, QOTOs column design does make it possible for you to reduce the columns to 2 or 3 and get some pretty good real estate. Still, I keep a lot of columns opena nd its a pain to destroy and create them just because I want to read a post in full form.

What I wish is there was a button where a column would temporarily expand to full width and then click it again to shrink it back down to normal.

That would let me keep my 6+ columns open but still exploit the full width of our UI on a per-post basis when needed (most posts dont need it, in fact mostly just yours do, lol :) )

@freemo How about this idea -- a Reply editor box in Real Writer mode...

Opening right below the post we are reading and replying to -- anywhere in the columns in the screen?

Collapsed Mastodon Firefox Extension adds this magic for me, great tool.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/collapsed-mastodon/

v------ Screenshot of this very post being typed in, right below your own post. This could be in ANY post, anywhere in the screen.

@design_RG Teh nice thing about that layout is you dont waste a whole column on having just an editor box there. So I can dig it!

@freemo Yes.

And -- the editor box is a huge nice wide mama.... :)

Love it.

@design_RG I love the idea.

I wish we could get some of the community contributing to the QOTO source code. I'm actually surprised they dont. The idea of users being able to submit source code to their own social media network and actually see it incorporated youd think would be rather enticing :)

@freemo Yes, I think that is indeed great, but few users (myself included) would have the knowledge of the platform to propose and add code to it.

Wish I could, but i am on the Writer's department, will support as much as possible with my own skills in the area I have some.

@design_RG We are a STEM instance. I'd imagine a fair number of our users could figure out how to edit the source code if they were driven to do so.

@freemo Just visited the Github for Collapsed Mastodon and realized he HAS Chrome version as well -- just get it from the Git.

https://github.com/Eskuero/collapsed_mastodon

Eskuero, the author, is on Fediverse too, although I think his instance is kaput. https://github.com/Eskuero

@design_RG how would this help us in the QOTO front end? This appears to be a chrome app so not readily integratable into a plain webapp at first glance.

@freemo It is an add on for the browsers, and it does require AWI enabled.

So for the more dedicated users, unhappy with Eugen's handling of wide screens, which is pretty sucky IMO.

Not for everyone, yes,, but it's nice the Chrome users can benefit too.