Abbreviations (and acronyms)

Extensions
21

After setting up initial run using the ~[]() pattern I noticed a couple issues:

  1. Tilde didn’t feel natural or that it communicated as effectively as initially thought.
  2. Because of the way strikethrough additions are often implemented, it could end up being struck through when using a parser that doesn’t recognize the pattern.

Decided to try a different pattern: [.]()

When asking a non-developer which read more like “prepare for abbreviation” they chose the latter. Oddly enough because of file extensions and the pattern there. The added benefit here is that when the pattern is not recognized by the parser, the document appears to be readable. However, in some cases, the abbreviation is turned into a link.

See GitHub rendering of the README.md file here: https://github.com/8fold/commonmark-abbreviations

22

Is there anything I can do to help move this forward? I’ve written some simple markdown extensions before & would be happy to take a crack at this, but it sounds like the syntax is still under debate.

What’s the cost associated with supporting the HTML (as a passthrough) as an initial step (like details? Would this cause problems for some set of users? It can always be enhanced with sugar later, but currently it’s impossible to use abbr in any way, so any solution would be better for those of us wanting to use it.

Thanks in advance, happy to help!

1 Like
23

Almost a year later: GitHub - 8fold/commonmark-abbreviations: An extension of PHP League's CommonMark library to enable abbreviation usage.

Extension for the CommonMark from PHP League is being used in a live project not run by me - wiki-like game.

In keeping with the tradition of the acronym being in parentheses after being spelled out, I’m going to change the order in the syntax:

[.Mardkown](M⬇)

In context, I’m finding reading the unconverted Markdown relatively easy to read in context. (The following uses the description list extension as well.)

Static
:   The [.HyperText Markup Language](HTML) used by the browser is pre-rendered.
:   The HTML may, or may not, exist as separate files; using a form of a front-controller or other middle layer would still fall into this style so long as the pre-rendered HTML ins't altered.

Dynamic
:   The HTML for the site is generated, or manipulated, based on the specific request being made.
1 Like