Indented paragraphs

[brotherjack]

I really appreciate this markdown editor, thank you, but I have a question. I wrote a few paragraphs starting with an indented tab. If I attempt to edit those paragraphs, they are enclosed in what appears to be a code block. At the top there is a text-input asking for the specific language being used. There does not seem to be a way to get rid of this without deleting the tab and then re-inputting the tab. Is this the desired behavior or a bug?

[aymansalkhatib]

This is expected Markdown behaviour, not a MarkText bug. In Markdown (CommonMark/GFM), a line that starts with a tab or 4+ spaces, when it isn't inside a list, is an indented code block (CommonMark spec). MarkText follows the spec, so it shows those paragraphs as code; that's what the "language" box is for. Other Markdown viewers (GitHub, VS Code, etc.) render them as code too.

Markdown has no syntax for first-line paragraph indentation, but there are a few ways to get the look you want:

1. Use space entities instead of a tab

  This paragraph starts with an indent and stays a normal paragraph.

  is an "em space" (entity references); two of them look like a tab.      works too. They render as spaces, but because they aren't real leading spaces/tabs, the line isn't treated as code.

2. Use the full-width space character (U+3000, commonly used for indentation in CJK writing). Markdown only counts normal spaces and tabs as indentation, so typing it at the start of the line gives an indent without creating a code block.

3. Keep the Markdown clean and indent only when exporting
If the indent is only needed in the final document, write plain paragraphs and add p { text-indent: 2em; } to the CSS of your HTML/PDF export (or style it in the tool you publish to). This keeps the .md file portable.

To fix the existing paragraphs: put the cursor at the start of the text inside the code block and delete the leading tab, or convert the block back to a normal paragraph from the Paragraph menu. Then use one of the options above.

[brotherjack]

Hmmm, OK, this is good to know. I'll stop trying to fight it and keep with 3. Thank you!