Support multi-line component props?

[xMrAfonso]

PS: I did message Sebastien on X, but I thought this would be a better place to ask this. It's not necessarily a feature request, it's rather a question on why it's not a thing.

Currently, component attributes seem limited to a single line:

::component{foo="bar" hello="world"}
::

Could comark support multi-line attributes like this?

::component{
  foo="bar"
  hello="world"
}
::

I know YAML props exist, but several users find that syntax verbose and overall unpleasant to work with. Additionally, would love to know more on the reasons why this isn't already a thing, or what the limitations are.

It would be nice to also maybe have an props attribute which I can insert yaml directly. For instance:

::component{ props="|
  foo: "bar"
  hello: "world"
"}
::

[farnabaz]

For multi-line props you can use Block Attributes style.

::component  
```yaml [props]  
foo: "bar"  
hello: "world"  
```  
::  

[xMrAfonso]

Yes, I amaware of that but I specifically asked why this specific multi-line is not supported and that users dislike the way you just described. @farnabaz

[farnabaz]

@xMrAfonso I see. There isn't one specific reason—there are multiple considerations behind how we chose and shaped the syntax this way. I'll name two important ones and explain how they influenced this specific feature.

Readability

We didn't want to negatively affect Markdown readability. One of the core principles of Markdown is that the source itself should remain readable.

When designing the component syntax, we were careful not to create visual mess inside Markdown files. That's why we initially only supported block-level plugins. The logic is roughly this: if you see :: at the beginning of a line, you know it's a component and may not need to read its contents unless you care about the rendered version.

::component{...anything}

Some paragraphs and content

::

This simple rule prevents readers from having to scan those lines for meaningful content. Attributes, most of the time, aren't useful information for someone reading the raw Markdown—the paragraphs and text are the actual content.

The multiline syntax was introduced later. To minimize its impact on readability, we chose the already familiar YAML/code-block syntax. Markdown readers are used to recognizing and navigating this kind of syntax, so it causes less disruption.

Markdown renderers

Another important consideration is how the syntax will appear in existing Markdown renderers such as GitHub.

1

::component{ props="|
foo: "bar"
hello: "world"
"}
::

2

::component{
foo="bar"
hello="world"
}
::

3

::component

foo: "bar"
hello: "world"

::

Personally, I think the third option is easier to understand when rendered by a Markdown renderer that doesn't support the component syntax.

---

All that aside, the component syntax is optional in Comark. We enable it by default, but you can disable it, clone it, create a new plugin, test it with different readers and writers, and, if you like it publish it for the community. 🙂

[atinux]

I created a browser web extension (pending approval on official Chrome & Firefox stores), hope this would help 😊

https://github.com/comarkdown/comark-webext

[xMrAfonso]

I created a browser web extension (pending approval on official Chrome & Firefox stores), hope this would help 😊

https://github.com/comarkdown/comark-webext

Hey, looks very interesting indeed. Will check it out!

Only reason for this issue was mainly checking if there was no other way of doing multi line/structured props without using the code blocks. I guess it isn't.