# Generic directives/plugins syntax

**URL:** <https://talk.commonmark.org/t/generic-directives-plugins-syntax/444>\
**Category:** Extensions\
**Created:** [September 6, 2014, 9:50am UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/generic-directives-plugins-syntax/444 "2014-09-06T09:50:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 143

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**Author:** ![jgm](https://cdn.commonmark.org/user_avatar/talk.commonmark.org/jgm/32/1360_2.png) [@jgm](https://talk.commonmark.org/u/jgm)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2015, 9:04am UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/generic-directives-plugins-syntax/444/143 "2015-06-03T09:04:51Z")

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+++ nielsle [Jun 02 15 13:23]:

> [1]nielsle  
> June 2
> 
> Wild idea. How about unifying code for plugins and code formatting. The  
> average user cannot tell the difference anyway, so why bother.
> 
> ```youtube
> Here is a video of my cat.
> 
> ```

One advantage of this sort of approach is that requires no  
changes in the parser. You just need to go through the AST,  
looking for specially marked code blocks and transforming  
them to links or whatnot.

Compare my comment [here](http://talk.commonmark.org/t/what-could-a-spoiler-tag-extension-look-like/767/68).

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