Which Text Format You Should Choose for Redmine: Textile or Markdown?

There is a pretty simple saying: not only does a concept matter, but the manner in which it is realized. .

Indeed, the language you use in Redmine is of direct relevance to the success of your team. In today’s post we are going to discuss this topic in more detail and find what markup language works for your Redmine.

With the help of this material, you will learn the following points:

• Text Formatting
• Textile Basics
• Markdown Basics
• Textile vs Markdown

Text Formatting: Definition, Lightweight Markup Languages, Use

Text formatting is the process of changing the way a web page looks by giving a certain format to its specific elements (words, sentences, paragraphs, etc.) with the help of markup languages. In layman’s terms, any hypertext consists of various symbols that encode the data about its characteristics and structure.

Thus, such texts contain, apart from a mere sequence of words and punctuation marks, some additional information about their components, such as headings, highlights, lists, etc. It also gives users an opportunity to insert some graphics and copy the information from other texts into their document.

Not to dig deeper and overload you with technical terms, we will only focus on the tip of the iceberg: the lightweight markup languages. These languages are designed to format texts simply and quickly, in a way so a user with a plain text editor can also grasp the text idea and retain its information. They are primarily used in wikis, forums and blogs.

The lightweight languages are characterized by a set of functions limited to a minimum with a poor range of supported tags. However, it is easy to acquire and refine their dominance, as well as to read the source text, so it is no wonder that such languages as Textile, Markdown or Wikitext have gained popularity in web development.

But what is their use really? Rich text formatting enhances and improves your page readability, which is directly connected with the way how your team members process and understand the information you are presenting to them. For example, until what date it is necessary to hand in the final report or which bugs should be fixed by a specific employee. For commercial purposes, it matters in the same way. The SEO ranking, for instance, also takes into account how a web text is structured and arranged, not only its comprehensiveness and formal correspondence to a user’s request.

Since Redmine supports two markup languages, which are Textile and Markdown, we are going to discuss them further.

Textile Basics

Developed in 2002, Textile was initially made for Textpattern, a content management system created by Dean Allen. Its use is currently not limited to this program only. The language is employed for writing and publishing online text content in general.

Textile is aimed at converting plain texts into HTML markup. The language’s syntax is quite simple, which makes Textile attractive for many users. Basically, it processes any text as a set of blocks separated by a blank line. Besides, paragraphs are considered to be default blocks and other types are identified with a special block signature placed at the beginning of each block: therefore, headings of different levels are highlighted with the help of “h1.−h6.”; quotations are marked by “bq.”; code lines appear with “bc.” To learn more Textile signs, check its web page.

In case Textile’s functions are not sufficient for the necessary formatting changes, it is also possible to use HTML markup in almost all block segments, excluding block code.

Markdown Basics

Another lightweight markup language supported by Redmine is Markdown. It was created by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz two years later than Textile and strongly inspired by pre-existing languages. Markdown was originally conceived as a perfect language for blogs with readability in its core.

As its popularity grew, many implementations like definition lists, footnotes, tables, etc. appeared, thereby expanding Markdown’s functionality. Still, as well as Textile, Markdown is, above all, designed to generate valid HTML. The main difference between two languages’ syntaxes is that Markdown uses the sign “*” in headings and its number corresponds to the level of a heading while paragraphs are separated by a blank line. If you are interested in finding more about Markdown’s syntax, we highly recommend you visit the official site.

Textile vs Markdown

After the brief introduction of each language, it is high time to go over the main question: which markup is it better to choose for your Redmine?

It is no secret that Textile has been used as the default language in Redmine for many years, which means that it has been tested and mastered all this time. Even the official Redmine.org is written in Textile, needless to say many Redmine installations as well, so many users consistently choose this format.

Nevertheless, other platforms, like GitHub, are usually written with the help of Markdown. For this reason, to make a fresh start in Redmine we do not see any problem if you go with Markdown.

To sum up, a tradition or an innovation, an experience or a prospect – it is all up to you. The only thing you should consider is your target audience: what suits them the best, what Redmine formatting is preferable in their opinion, what they expect from your web page. If you are still in two minds, our specialists are always ready to help you. To get professional support for your Redmine, click here.