Bugzilla:Markdown

bug 330707

Markdown is a text-to-html conversion tool that allows you to write an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid HTML.

Integration of markdown into Bugzilla will provide support for formatting within comments, while still supporting plain-text content.

The bulk of this project involves development in Perl and regular expressions.

Markdown Flavour

Bugzilla requires the following customisations to a Markdown engine:

• continue to support the existing Bugzilla markup:
  • links to bugs, comments, attachments
  • linkification of URLs
  • linkification rules defined by Bugzilla extensions
• remove support for raw HTML
• remove support for inline images
• add support for the following Github Flavoured Markdown features:
  • multiple underscores in words
  • strikethrough
  • fenced code blocks

Overview of the required changes

• add a User Preference which controls Markdown generation and rendering
• when Markdown is enabled, add a checkbox to the "new comment" UI which allows per-comment disabling
• update the schema for the comments table to support per-comment rendering
• create a template filter for comments which honours the current user and comment settings, calling a Markdown library if required
• use the template filter in all places comments are rendered as HTML (web UI and email)
• update the comment template to add the Markdown checkbox, and ensure the template is used in all relevant locations
• create a Bugzilla specific Markdown processor rough POC
• create an "editing help" for users which explains all the supported and unsupported Markdown rules