Mastering Markdown

Jason He Updated by Jason He

What is Markdown?

Markdown is a way to style text on the web. You control the display of the document; formatting words as bold or italic, adding images, and creating lists are just a few of the things we can do with Markdown. Mostly, Markdown is just regular text with a few non-alphabetic characters thrown in, like # or *.

You can use Markdown in many of DeskDirector's features:

  • Task List / Task Template
  • Form
  • Ticket Description and Comment

PSA support

ConnectWise supports markdown. Their new HTML editor for ticket note and time entry is actually Markdown editor. It saved as markdown internally. ConnectWise may not support some of the advanced Markdown format, such as table.

Autotask supports HTML inside their own interface, but their API only supports plain text. Since the nature of Markdown, people can still read it without major difficulty.

Examples

Line breaks

Many people struggle to understand how line breaks work in Markdown. By default, Markdown will render a line break when there are two space at end of line or there are empty line between two sentences. DeskDirector's Markdown setting has been altered to help in such case. Normal line breaks will render as a </br>.

```
Hello  (<-- two spaces)
World
```

// Render as
Hello

World

------------------------------------------------

```
Hello
World
```

// Render as
Hello
World

------------------------------------------------

```
Hello

World
```

// Render as
Hello

World

Text

It's very easy to make some words **bold** and other words *italic* with Markdown. You can even [link to Google!](http://google.com)

It's very easy to make some words bold and other words italic with Markdown. You can even link to Google!

https://www.deskdirector.com - automatic!
[DeskDirector](https://www.deskdirector.com)

https://www.deskdirector.com - automatic!

DeskDirector

List

Sometimes you want numbered lists:

1. One
2. Two
3. Three

Sometimes you want bullet points:

* Start a line with a star
* Profit!

Alternatively,

- Dashes work just as well
- And if you have sub points, put two spaces before the dash or star:
  - Like this
  - And this

Sometimes you want numbered lists:

  1. One
  2. Two
  3. Three

Sometimes you want bullet points:

  • Start a line with a star
  • Profit!

Alternatively,

  • Dashes work just as well
  • And if you have sub points, put two spaces before the dash or star:
    • Like this
    • And this

Images

If you want to embed images, this is how you do it:

![Image of Yaktocat](https://octodex.github.com/images/yaktocat.png)

If you want to embed images, this is how you do it:

Image of Yaktocat

Video

Video embeds are not supported in ticket comments at moment, and will render the provided alt-text instead. You can still link these normally, however.

![youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYEDA3JcQqw)

Quote

> Coffee. The finest organic suspension ever devised... I beat the Borg with it.
> - Captain Janeway

Coffee. The finest organic suspension ever devised... I beat the Borg with it.

  • Captain Janeway

Code

```
if (isAwesome){
  return true
}
```

if (isAwesome){
  return true
}

Inline Code

I think you should use an `<addr>` element here instead.

I think you should use an <addr> element here instead.

Table

In task lists, task templates and form field's subtitles, we support Pipe tables and Grid tables.

| Syntax      | Description |
| ----------- | ----------- |
| Header      | Title       |
| Paragraph   | Text        |

Table with alignment

| Syntax      | Description | Test Text     |
| :---        |    :----:   |          ---: |
| Header      | Title       | Here's this   |
| Paragraph   | Text        | And more      |
Syntax Description
Header Title
Paragraph Text

Table with alignment

Syntax Description Test Text
Header Title Here's this
Paragraph Text And more

How did we do?

Contact