JavaScript libraries for Markdown, Textile and others; Anchor references

Question

I need a javascript library to convert structured ascii text to html on the fly. I am especially interested in the following point:

I would like do use anchored links inside pages, see http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/links.html#h-12.1.1

Which library for structured text would support this or if it is not supported could be easily extended (i could write an extension)?

Can you make a suggestion for a good and simple syntax for structured ascii text for "in page links"?

<a href="#jumpend">jump to the end</a>
...some body text...
<a name="jumpend">this is the end</a>

I like the way links are written in "markdown", so how could the name anchor in a to be written extension be expressed in a nice way?

Which libraries do you know or can you recommend? Should be multi browser, good and easy to read and extend clean source code, actively maintained.

I am presently having a look at the JavaScript Markdown library "Showdown": http://attacklab.net/showdown/

Smoking

Answer 1

I think that you should not use markdown if you are looking for anchor references. Try the following Creole Wiki markup parsers:

• A prototype Javascript Creole 0.4 parser can be found at MeatballSociety
• JavaScript Creole 1.0 Wiki Markup Parser, based on the above

Yolandoyolane

You're welcome! Good to know it helped. If this is what you were looking for, don't forget to set the answer as accepted ;) – Yolandoyolane

Answer 2

You might look into markItUp!

Eldin

I believe that markItUp relies on the server to do the parsing. – Yolandoyolane

Answer 3

Textile hast a builtin "footnote" mechanism:

.. AJAX[1] ...

fn1. Asynchronous JavaScript and XML ..

As of Textile 2.2 there's also a "notelist" feature: textile.sitemonks.com/?eg=notes

Ruthie