Automatic insertion of Markdown for block quotes should behave the same as lists

Feature Requests
1

Currently if you start a line with > to indicate a block quote, add some text, then hit return, Drafts doesn’t automatically insert another > at the beginning of the new line. This feels wrong given the original Markdown spec, which states that each new line in a block quote should begin with > .

I’m wondering if Drafts shouldn’t treat block quotes similar to lists, inserting the > (similar to * , 2. , etc.) automatically, and then automatically removing it if you hit return again without typing any text.

2

I don’t have any strong opinion about it. No one has asked for this before, but seems reasonable. Looks like it varies how it’s implemented across editors - of the four other popular editors I just tried, two did quote continuation like you describe - the other two did not. So I guess there’s not a clear consensus.

Anyone else have thoughts?

2 Likes
3

i think @garbonsai is right - why not stick to the spec?

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4

The spec really isn’t the issue. It is not specifying how a text editor should behave when editing Markdown.

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5

yes thats right, personally I’d agree that it would automatically insert the indicators, because they dont annoy me and i dont need to scan all the lines above to check out if this is a quote now or not.

1 Like
6

I don’t use block quotes a lot, but I think it’d trip me up if they didn’t behave the way that’s being proposed.

I understand that you don’t need the ‘>’ at the beginning of each line, but it is clearer.

I’d support the change

1 Like
7

Thanks for the reply. Out of curiosity, which two didn’t automatically insert > after a hard return? I’m moving away from Bear (which did) to Ulysses (which also does).

8

Byword, 1Writer, Editorial all do not continue the quote block.

2 Likes
9

I can’t say I use this a lot either, but I also can’t see doing it by accident and getting annoyed. Sounds like a worthwhile change to me.

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10

I just wanted to say thanks for including this change in the latest beta—it works great and is a real timesaver when typing multi-line block quotes.

1 Like