Inform users of Markdown and other formatting options

[maiki interi]

Riding on top of #689, it took me a while to figure out that Markdown could be used (after HTML and Textile, I ended up figuring it out from looking at closed issues). I don't have any particular suggestion, but maybe an info box on the side or the footer could indicate what can be used to format their text.

[Jef van Schendel]

I agree. :)

And since I'm working on the comment section anyway, I'll grab this one along.

[maiki interi]

Groovy!

I've been thinking about how I would like this to work, looking at what other sites do. For example, Redmine has the "Text formatting" link in the upper-right corner of the text box. It opens a new window. While that seems to work okay, it both annoys me, and makes me wonder if that is accessible. What happens in JAWS? Or on a mobile device?

I am playing with templates, so a consideration is how different themes will handle messages like this, and at which point do we add them (views versus templates).

Anyhow, looking forward to what you come up with.

[Jef van Schendel]

I've given the comment section a small makeover and it now includes the text "Type your comment here. You can use Markdown for formatting.", where "Markdown" links to http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/basics.

A bit crude maybe, but it works. This text only appears after you've clicked "Add comment" so it isn't visible by default.

I decided against adding a mini-tutorial (as used by Redmine or Reddit) because it'll add complexity and a simple link works on every platform (you've got a good point about popups and accessibility). We can always add it later though. :)

[Aleksej]

Jef van Schendel wrote:

I've given the comment section a small makeover and it now includes the text "Type your comment here. You can use Markdown for formatting.", where "Markdown" links to

Thanks Jef. There is a few other places left:

• Media description editing (for media already uploaded)
• Upload page
• User bio (issue #410)

[Jef van Schendel]

Done!

https://gitorious.org/mediagoblin/mediagoblin/commit/8545cfc97d9336b100881bd3ebafd4a5f4882dd3/diffs/9c196287ad26f52acb38d6c37560848da23151a6

[Will Kahn-Greene]

The original url for this bug was ​http://bugs.foocorp.net/issues/690 .
Relations:
#337: related