# Markdown viewer (no editing) addon **URL:** \ **Category:** Ideas\ **Tags:** novice\ **Created:** [October 17, 2022, 3:29pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/markdown-viewer-no-editing-addon/2884 "2022-10-17T15:29:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![emyoulation](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/gramps.discourse.group/emyoulation/32/67_2.png) [@emyoulation](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/emyoulation)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 3:29pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/markdown-viewer-no-editing-addon/2884/1 "2022-10-17T15:29:31Z")
Many of the Addons developed in the GitHub repositories include readme.md markdown files. A tool that leveraged these markdown files would give a system that allows documentation to in sync WITH the add-ons Could a viewer gramplet or quickview for the GitHub dialect of markdown be created? Then the Plugin Manager could build a list of readme.md files for registered add-ons to dynamically link Help. And a Gramplet markdown viewer (maybe with the ability to be called to front in the bottombar while being passed the UNC/URL) would allow use the Sidebar and bottombar in sync. It would need an extra protocol for like the way Notes handle the “gramps://” protocol for calls within the application. (Although a that seems to be exclusively for opening Object Editors. Shouldn’t there also be support Doing a Navigator function, where a view mode goes active with a particular record active? Or with the current active record in the last used view mode of that category view, if no record or view mode is specified.) This could be leveraged to supersede the “Welcome to Gramps!” dashboard gramplet with content that does not require a programmer to fix grammar or linkrot. And could be smart enough to support language variable filenames. And a fall-forwards (as opposed for fallback) feature that looks for the equivalent filename within a specifically named addon folder. This would enable the “Welcome to Gramps!” text to improve through the add-on management system. If an .ini functionality was included, the progressive lessons might be served with Gramps keeping track of the user’s progress. An alternate fall-forwards option might be to look for a specifically ID’d object of “markdown” type in the Notes collection to feed Tree-specific “Welcome to Gramps!” content. A person could distribute their Tree with a Guided Tour note. (I’ve done something similar with the “ToDo” dashboard gramplet. But it is not a default Gramplet on a fresh install. So newbies may never find my Guided Tours.) ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/gramps/original/2X/5/58eaf9f48baec24557765618acb667c1ea62d7e5.png) ---
**Author:** ![emyoulation](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/gramps.discourse.group/emyoulation/32/67_2.png) [@emyoulation](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/emyoulation)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 4:27pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/markdown-viewer-no-editing-addon/2884/2 "2022-10-17T16:27:26Z")
There are a couple other related threads: > [@Markdown report?](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/markdown-report/1267): > > Is there a Gramps report that produces markdown? Or an xsl which could be used to convert the xml from Gramps to MD? I am trying Obsidian recommended by @StoltHD and I would like to see a graph output from Gramps data Thanks > [@Converting GitHub markdown to MediaWiki articles](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/converting-github-markdown-to-mediawiki-articles/2477): > > Is there a preferred tool & workflow for converting add-on development README.md files in a GitHub repository to make a preliminary MediaWiki webpage for a new add-on? (I accept that we’re still limited by our MediaWiki backend failing to properly update. So we shouldn’t risk installing add-ons like a bulk image uploader.) It is unfortunate that GitHub markdown is a foreign format for the desktop OSes. Otherwise, the development documentation files that get ZIPped up with the add-on could simp… ---
**Author:** ![ennoborg](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/gramps.discourse.group/ennoborg/32/4659_2.png) [@ennoborg](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/ennoborg)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 6:17pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/markdown-viewer-no-editing-addon/2884/3 "2022-10-17T18:17:47Z")
When I google this, I see several Python markdown viewers that translate markdown files to HTML, and then either call a browser to display that, or use WebKit for that. Does that help? I remember seeing some old code for a simple Python based HTML editor that used WebKit, and reading that WebKit made this less portable than we’d want to. Is that still true? I feel a bit lazy today, so I can’t give more details. ---
**Author:** ![emyoulation](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/gramps.discourse.group/emyoulation/32/67_2.png) [@emyoulation](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/emyoulation)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 6:34pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/markdown-viewer-no-editing-addon/2884/4 "2022-10-17T18:34:05Z")
An HTML conversion might be a shortcut. There’s already a Gramps HTML viewer that was a precursor to the Geography view. ---
**Author:** ![ennoborg](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/gramps.discourse.group/ennoborg/32/4659_2.png) [@ennoborg](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/ennoborg)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 6:57pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/markdown-viewer-no-editing-addon/2884/5 "2022-10-17T18:57:24Z")
OK, nice. Please forget what I wrote about WebKit, because that’s old code for Python 2 only. Without further testing, I think that this might be a good choice: > **[GitHub - Python-Markdown/markdown: A Python implementation of John Gruber’s...](https://github.com/Python-Markdown/markdown)** > > A Python implementation of John Gruber’s Markdown with Extension support. - GitHub - Python-Markdown/markdown: A Python implementation of John Gruber’s Markdown with Extension support. And here’s a tutorial that makes use of this version: > **[How To Use Python-Markdown to Convert Markdown Text to HTML | DigitalOcean](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-python-markdown-to-convert-markdown-text-to-html)** > > Markdown is a markup language commonly used to simplify the process of writing content in an easy-to-read text format, which a software tool or programming l… ---
**Author:** ![emyoulation](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/gramps.discourse.group/emyoulation/32/67_2.png) [@emyoulation](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/emyoulation)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 4:51pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/markdown-viewer-no-editing-addon/2884/8 "2022-11-22T16:51:26Z")
@Nick-Hall is doing a 2nd generation Addon Manager for the 5.2 release. One of the things it will include is expanding `help_url` in the Gramps Plugin Registration to all plugins, not just Gramplets. This will allow building a addon-list that includes the a pointer to the documentation and offering users the opportunity to explore an add-on’s docs before deciding whether to install. The majority of GitHub Repositories now include README.md files, which are installed when addon plugins are installed. Maybe a bottombar Markdown viewer add-on could be built that looks at the active tab of sidebar plugin and displays the README.md that exists in that plugin’s folder. (It could ignore undocked since they have a ‘help’ button.) A similar viewer section/button could be added to the toolbar Tool & Report dialogs. (For Reports, if the README.md consistently _started_ with a report thumbnail, there would be a visual prompt in the dialog that helps user narrow their choices.) ---
**Author:** ![emyoulation](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/gramps.discourse.group/emyoulation/32/67_2.png) [@emyoulation](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/emyoulation)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2026, 5:57pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/markdown-viewer-no-editing-addon/2884/9 "2026-05-15T17:57:21Z")
It seems like there should be a better way to document Addons and Tutorials in Gramps. So here are some screenshots of functional wish-coded Dashboard Gramplets that might be an alternative. The **Markdown Dash** renders GitHub-style markdown in a Gramplet on the Dashboard. It only supports a subset of that but does have the basics: images, bold, italic, strikethru, headers, in-document hotlinks, external Web browser links. It allows browsing for `.md` files packaged in your installed Addon plugins. It also supports inserting icon from the Gramps application and themes. And you can hotlink to Object Editor for specific Object IDs, and navigate to Views. The **Icon Browser** (_not yet stable_… 2,500 is a LOT of icons to list!) will search the available icons for Gramps and the Current theme. Then preview the various standard sizes that exist (dimming sizes that have to be scaled). And offer clipboard ready snippets of inserting the icon into documents written for the Markdown Dash. ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/gramps/original/2X/7/7e12876c623ef4c33ffee42a8ea9b13cb23f7453.png)