[HN Gopher] Show HN: A Standalone/GitHub CLI Extension to Previe...
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       Show HN: A Standalone/GitHub CLI Extension to Preview GitHub
       Flavored Markdown
        
       Author : kokada
       Score  : 23 points
       Date   : 2025-04-20 13:27 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | worldsavior wrote:
       | Is using a web browser really necessary for viewing Markdown?
       | Seems a really inefficient way to view a what's supposed to be a
       | small and minimal language.
        
         | Jaxkr wrote:
         | Markdown was designed to compile to HTML and web browsers are
         | designed to render HTML. So I'd say a browser is the only
         | reasonable choice.
        
         | DistractionRect wrote:
         | Emphasis on "Github flavored", which supports additional
         | extensions to the markdown spec that a TUI can't properly
         | preview. You need some kind of GUI (preferably a browser since
         | it does support some html) in order to properly preview it.
        
       | swyx wrote:
       | i dont know why its a CLI when it could just be a js library? is
       | there a more minimal version of this that can then be used more
       | flexibly everywhere else?
        
         | flysand7 wrote:
         | I'm assuming it's because the project isn't meant to "Render"
         | markdown, but provide a preview that works offline. That
         | includes hot reloading when the original file changes, which
         | you can't really do with just a client-side library.
         | 
         | If it was a JS library in addition to providing you a webpage
         | with js in it, it would also need to provide you with a server
         | with a hot reload, and we're back to CLI.
         | 
         | They are using goldmark library with some extensions[0] to
         | render markdown. And there's also GitHub API for rendering
         | markdown[1] if you're curious.
         | 
         | References:
         | 
         | [0]: https://github.com/thiagokokada/gh-gfm-
         | preview/blob/main/int...
         | 
         | [1]:
         | https://docs.github.com/en/rest/markdown?apiVersion=2022-11-...
        
           | swyx wrote:
           | fwiw there are plenty of webserver cli's with reload
           | capability (https://www.npmjs.com/package/live-server or npx
           | serve + chokidar), this is definitely one of those things
           | that can decomposed to single responsibility tools
           | 
           | (nit: hot reload means a specific thing in the js ecosystem
           | and you prob dont mean that)
        
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       (page generated 2025-04-20 23:02 UTC)