div & span support

[David Aurelio]

Richard Taytor wrote:

> > [John Fraser:] Being able to wrap Markdown text in divs and spans ...

> 

> I find div and span tags quite useful. Here is an example of the syntax I'm presently using.

> 

> [[ {#orchard}

> Contents of div here. And ~this{.plum}~ is how I do spans.

> ]]


On [Markdown syntax], you can find the following statement:

> Markdown is intended to be as easy-to-read and easy-to-write as is 

> feasible.

>

> Readability, however, is emphasized above all else. A

> Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain

> text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting

> instructions.


I don't think that you suggestions increase the legibility of Markdown
for people that don't know HTML. I agree with John Fraser: divs and
spans might only be necessary for people who already know the concept.

I'd like to see that future enhancements to the syntax are not be a
simple mapping of possible HTML tags but rather concepts that might be
helpful for text writing.

Examples are

      * Text anchors (sorry, I'm not sure whether this is the
        approptiate english word) - it seems like this was your goal by
        defining a div. In my opinion, the possibility to define header
        ids in [Markdown Extra] is good, although the feature breaks as
        soon as users define an invalid id (containing spaces or
        symbols).

      * Foreign words. I don't know if this would really be useful.
        Foreign words could, for instance, be defined as follows:

    > I have been to the [[de: Oktoberfest]] in Munich last year.
    
    which would map to:
    <span lang="de" xml:lang="de">Oktoberfest</span>

    Ideally, [[es: *Paella*]] _and_ *[[es: Paella]]* would map to
    <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Paella</em>. Maybe it makes things more 
    complicated than necessary...

      * Tables. This is a mapping to HTML elements, but also a concept
        useful when writing certain types of text. The same applies to
        definition lists.

- David Aurelio

[Markdown syntax]:
<http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax#philosophy>
[Markdown Extra]: <http://www.michelf.com/projects/php-markdown/extra/>