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Comment by Eric_WVGG | Hacker News Reader

I’d love to see Markdown added to Apple Messages.

I’m constantly sending URLs to people, like https://somesite.com/login. The point of these links is usually that people read them and understand them.

But the automatic behavior is to replace the text with OpenGraph links, big obnoxious bubbles of graphics, which distort or destroy the meaning that I’m trying to convey.

Given the opportunity, I would send most links wrapped in `backticks`.

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For those who don't know, you can tap on the link preview graphic and select "Convert to Text Link" to switch back to clickable text. As you mention there's no way to change the automatic behavior but at least it is possible to switch back to text links on a case-by-case basis.

THANK YOU

It would be awesome if Messages, Mail, and Notes rendered Markdown.

System-wide Markdown editing would also be awesome, perhaps as a feature of the keyboard.

I hacked up something like this for Apple Notes. It’s far from perfect, but at least it lets me type Markdown-style punctuation and get the expect results. Think of it like a crummy Vim mode sort of thing.

https://honeypot.net/2024/01/17/making-notes-look.html

This is useful, thanks!

Glad it's helpful! I didn't go super far with it, but maybe it can inspire someone else to dig in and flesh it out.

If you want a Mac email program that renders Markdown, definitely checkout MailMate[1]. Indie developer, has already shipped a lot of updates this year.

[1]: https://freron.com

Interestingly (to me) the SwiftUI Text element supports Markdown natively via AttributedString.

Instead of Markdown, add support for editing links with text, like word processors have.

I just do this:

<yourlink.com> and it sends it as a regular link without the bubble

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