Markdown Quote with Onebox Header

AI-generated summary

In a discussion on enhancing Markdown quote handling in Discourse, Buddy proposes a solution that avoids extending Markdown syntax: creating a dedicated route (e.g., http://talk.commonmark.org/quote/sam/168/5) paired with a special onebox engine that renders quote headers identically to existing quote boxes—without extra padding—thus preserving visual consistency. The idea is that clicking such a link would expand the full post, mimicking current quote behavior, while remaining compatible with standard Markdown. riking cautions that any change must maintain compatibility with existing written text. Buddy acknowledges this, noting that modifying standard Markdown would be a breaking change, and suggests instead triggering a new parser via a column like ‘parse revision’ to handle problematic posts without disrupting existing content. The core goal is to enable rich quote rendering without syntax extensions, relying on routing and onebox logic instead.

Continuing the discussion from talk.commonmark.org,
Irony: This forum doesn't use standard markdown - #5 by sam - Meta - CommonMark Discussion

I wanted to suggest that quotes could be handled without an extension to markdown syntax: a new route could be created for quote links, with a special onebox engine that renders that link identical to existing quote box headers with no padding below the onebox, such that the following:

http://talk.commonmark.org/quote/sam/168/5
>The number 1 issue with using CommonMark here is lack Discourse specific extensions.

would render exactly the same as a quote using the current bbcode syntax does. If the quote were expanded by clicking the chevron however, the full post would show, as it currently does, except it wouldn’t clobber the markdown quote.

I understand that currently, links to posts with restricted visibility do not onebox. Those links, in quote format, could onebox to a quote header with no chevron. By the way, I have found a related problem with quoting restricted visibility posts: Login to your account - What the Daily WTF?

Keep in mind that you still have to keep compatibility with existing written text.

I would expect that, if I am understanding what you mean by compatibility correctly, that the change to standard markdown would be a breaking change, and that a solution could be to add a ‘parser version’ column to posts to identify the posts that should never be rebaked – problems with those posts can be solved by editing, to trigger a fresh bake with the new parser.