One of the small plugins that I’ve maintained – and used – for sometime is the Markdown Code For WordPress plugin.

I initially wrote the plugin last year as a way to easily include my most frequently used markdown syntax into my post and comment editing.

Specifically, the plugin supports:

  • Backticks for `code`.
  • Single-asterisks *for emphasis*.
  • Double-asterisks **for strong**.

That’s all – short and sweet.

But with some of the latest changes to Jetpack and while I’ve been working on a number of smaller projects (or cleaning house of some of them), I went ahead and made some minor updates to the plugin.

Markdown Code For WordPress 0.5.1

Markdown Code For WordPress 0.5.1

The latest update actually removes one of the features that has been incorporated for the last few versions, as well as introduces support for Andy Fragen’s GitHub Updater plugin.

This means that if you have Andy’s plugin installed, then it should automatically detect when there are updates to this plugin so you can receive updates just like the WordPress plugin repository works.

Here’s the changelog for everything that’s gone into the plugin from 0.4.0 to version 0.5.1:

  • Removing the support for markdown in comments
  • Adding support for GitHub Updater

Told you it was simple :).

For those who are curious, I removed the support for the ability to compose comments in markdown because there was no visual indicator on the frontend for those who leave comments to know that that’s even a possibility.

Sure, they see the markup that’s available, but nothing indicates support for markdown, thus, I opted to remove the ability to make it easier for people to comment who have a reference directly in front of them, and who are likely more familiar with markup than markdown as it stands, anyway.

A Note About Jetpack

Since Jetpack now supports the ability to compose both posts and comments using markdown, I may discontinue this particular project.

The primary reason being that I think most people who use WordPress on a regular basis already have Jetpack installed. If they don’t, then they are either the type of people who don’t need markdown, or they are the types who are able to incorporate the features for themselves.

Whatever the case may be, this may end up being the final release of the plugin in exchange for Jetpack’s feature. If that happens, I’ll naturally update the blog.

But until then, we’re at 0.5.1 so feel free to grab a copy. Especially if you aren’t using Jetpack :).