Twid's !nstant-markdown:

!nstant-markdown-d is a small Node.js server that enables instant compilation and previewing of Markdown files. A plugin can easily be written for any text editor to interface with it.

One such client currently exists in the form of a plugin for Neovim (and possibly compatible with Vim): twidxuga/vim-instant-markdown

This fork also additionally allows: Great new look, no borders, resizes better, usable in a 50/50 split screen scenario.

• Major performance improvement, over the original version, due to a new 1 second (configurable) polling of markdown documents. No more slow mode! Plus Katex makes formula rendering fly, no more waiting on old MathJax.
• Links to other markdown files are now clickable and their destination is rendered. This happens as long as the liked files are within the folder tree of the markdown document for which InstantMarkdownPreview was started.
  • URLs contain the name of the file. To go back to seeing the file being edited in Neovim, a user must click the browser's back button to return to the landing page (root path, e.g. http://localhost:8090)
• Changing to another markdown buffer immediately displays that buffer, as long as it is within the same folder or subfolder of the first markdown document for which InstantMarkdownPreview was called.
  • As long as that buffer is in the folder or a sub-folder of the first markdown document for which InstantMardownPreview was started.
• Mermaid diagrams are now rendered.
• Running InstantMarkdownPreview now restarts the server. However, there is little need to restart the server when changing documents though, as it happens automatically.
• Task lists (GitHub-style) are now rendered.
• TOC are rendered with the [[TOC]] tag.
• Serves all content within the folder tree where the initial markdown document is - e.g. display images, download pdfs, etc.

Installation

The following assumes installation on Linux:

1. Ensure that you have git, nodejs and npm installed.

2. Clone this repository

  cd <base dir>
  git clone https://github.com/twidxuga/instant-markdown-d`

3. Install the module

  cd <base dir>/instant-markdown-d
  # for user specific installations (recommended), and link to a folder in path
  npm install
  ln -sfv $PWD/instant-markdown-d ~/.local/bin
  # OR alternativey system wide installation 
  sudo npm install

REST API

Action	HTTP Method	Request URL	Request Body
Refresh Markdown on page	PUT	http://localhost:\<port>	<New Markdown file contents>
Refresh Markdown on page	PUT	http://localhost:\<port>/path/to/markdown.md	<New Markdown file in folder tree>
Close Webpage	DELETE	http://localhost:\<port>
Render page from markdown file link clicked	GET	http://localhost:\<port>/path/to/markdown.md
Download resource	GET	http://localhost:\<port>/path/to/image.jpg

By default, <port> is 8090

Environment variables

• INSTANT_MARKDOWN_OPEN_TO_THE_WORLD=0 - By default, the server only listens on localhost. To make the server available to others in your network, set this environment variable to a non-empty value. Only use this setting on trusted networks!

• INSTANT_MARKDOWN_ALLOW_UNSAFE_CONTENT=1 - by default, scripts are blocked. Use this preference to allow scripts (Recommended).

• INSTANT_MARKDOWN_BLOCK_EXTERNAL=0 - By default, external resources such as images, stylesheets, frames and plugins are allowed. Use this setting to block such external content.

• INSTANT_MARKDOWN_SERVE_FOLDER_TREE=1 - Enables serving all content files without restriction of file type, starting from the base folder from which the instance is run, and including files under any of its sub-folders. This is disabled by default (set to 0), as it can potentially be a security concern in specific scenarios (Recommended).

• INSTANT_MARKDOWN_PORT=8090 - Specifies the port in which instant-markdown-d will be listening to connections.