Support for GFM task lists

johnwhitley

I've been loving Editorial's Taskpaper support, and recently had the thought that a very nice alternative/complement to that would be support for a GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) extension: Task Lists.

The syntax is valid Markdown, using the unordered list syntax, e.g.:

- [ ] a task list item
- [ ] list syntax required
- [ ] normal **formatting**, @mentions, #1234 refs
- [ ] incomplete
- [x] completed

Motivations

I like Taskpaper for its simplicity and the ability to intermix notes and task items. The GFM task lists also enable this, but with as much (or little) of the full power of Markdown as I choose.
The input UI can remain pretty simple. A straw man: - [ ] or - [x]starts a Markdown task list, <cr> continues it, etc. All similar to the existing Taskpaper list entry UI.
Better interoperability. Markdown has far better support than Taskpaper in other tools, making it easier to work on my desktop editor, then carry on later in Editorial, or vice-versa.
Editorial becomes an even better scratchpad for drafting Markdown that will ultimately be published on GitHub.

jasonhansel

I was just about to suggest this feature myself, for exactly the reasons you specify. +1

omz

I'm aware of GFM, and I originally wanted to support this in v. 1.2, but it turned out to be slightly more difficult to implement than I anticipated...

In TaskPaper mode, I basically just replace the dash ('-') with a checkbox widget, but it's a little more difficult to do this when there are multiple characters involved (e.g. cursor placement is a little bit of a problem because it could end up "inside" the checkbox).

It's still something I'd like to support at some point, but I don't know when I'll get to it yet.