mdv 1.6.0

Terminal Markdown Viewer

# Terminal Markdown Viewer

[](https://travis-ci.org/axiros/terminal_markdown_viewer)

When you edit multiple md files remotely, like in a larger
[mkdocs](http://www.mkdocs.org/) project, context switches between editing
terminal(s) and viewing browser may have some efficiency impact.
Also sometimes there is just no browser, like via security gateways offering
just a fixed set of applications on the hop in machine.
Further, reading efficiency and convenience is often significantly improved
by using colors.
And lastly, using such a thing for cli applications might improve user output,
e.g. for help texts.

This is where mdv, a Python based Markdown viewer for the terminal might be
a good option.

<!-- toc -->

- [Terminal Markdown Viewer](#terminal-markdown-viewer)
- [Features](#features)
- [Alternatives](#alternatives)
- [Installation](#installation)
- [Requirements](#requirements)
- [2.7 ?!](#py27)
- [Setup](#setup)
- [Usage](#usage)
- [CLI](#cli)
- [Inline](#inline)
- [Sample Inline Use Case: click module docu](#sample-inline-use-case-click-module-docu)
- [Customization](#customization)
- [Screenshots](#screenshots)
- [TODO](#todo)
- [Credits](#credits)
- [Updates](#updates)
- [July 2016:](#july-2016)
- [Lastly](#lastly)

<!-- tocstop -->



Markdown is "simple" enough to be well displayed on modern (256 color) terminals (except images that is).

<img src="./samples/1.png" width=500>

from

### Source
# Header 1
## Header 2
### Header 3
#### Header 4
##### Header 5
###### Header 6
```python
""" Test """
# Make Py2 >>> Py3:
import os, sys; reload(sys); sys.setdefaultencoding('utf-8')
# no? see http://stackoverflow.com/a/29832646/4583360 ...

# code analysis for hilite:
try:
from pygments import lex, token
from pygments.lexers import get_lexer_by_name, guess_lexer
```

| Tables | Fmt |
| -- | -- |
| !!! hint: wrapped | 0.1 **strong** |

!!! note: title
this is a Note


You can also use mdv as a **source code** viewer, best when you have docstrings with markdown in your code:


from

```python
~/terminal_markdown_viewer $ cat setup.py
#!/usr/bin/env python2.7
# coding: utf-8

"""_
# Mdv installation

## Usage

[sudo] ./setup.py install

----
"""

from setuptools import setup, find_packages

import mdv

setup(
name='mdv',
version=mdv.__version__,

```
(the '_' after the docstring telling mdv that markdown follows)

----

> mdv is a proof of concept hack: While for simple structures it does its job quite well, for complex markdown you want to use other tools.
> Especially for inlined html it simply fails.

----


## Features

- Tons of theme combinations: mdv ships with > 200 luminocity sorted themes, converted from html themes tables to ansi. Those can be combined for code vs regular markdown output...
- Admonitions
- Tables, incl. wide table handling avoiding "interleaving"
- Somewhat hackable, all in [one](mdv/markdownviewer.py) module
- Useable as lib as well
- File change monitor
- Text wrapping
- Source code highlighter
- Little directory change monitor (cames handy when working on multiple files, to get the current one always displayed)
- which can run arbitrary commands on file changes
- which passes filepath, raw and prettyfied content to the other command
Note: Poor man's implementation, polling. Check inotify based tools if you want sth better.

## Alternatives

The ones I know of (and which made me write mdv ;-) ):

1. There are quite a few from the js community (e.g. [msee](https://www.npmjs.com/package/msee), ansidown, ansimd and also nd which is great) but they require nodejs & npm, which I don't have on my servers. Also I personally wanted table handling and admonition support throughout and prob. too old to hack other peoples' js (struggling enough with my own). But have a look at them, they do some things better than mdv in this early version (I try to learn from them). Also [this](https://github.com/substack/picture-tube) would be worth a look ;-)
2. pandoc -> html -> elinks, lynx or pandoc -> groff -> man. (Heavy and hard to use from within other programs. Styling suboptimal)
3. vimcat (Also heavy and hard to use inline in other programs)

Summary: For production ready robust markdown viewing (e.g. for your customers) I recommend nd still, due to the early state of mdv. For playing around, especially with theming or when with Python, this one might be a valid alternative to look at.

## Installation

pip install mdv

(2.7 version of pip)
If you get `no attribute HTML_PLACEHOLDER`: update your markdown package.


#### Py2.7?!

Except for some print brackets there is no reason it would not run in 3 and I'd
pull if anybody sent me a version for 2 and 3. I myself won't do it though, will
never work in a language w/o bytestrings and the most important type based on
[funny enumerated](http://utf8everywhere.org/#characters) symbols.

Update: With 1.4 it now basically runs in Python3 in the sense of no compile
time errors - but the rendering result still is not really usable. Maybe
somebody is inclinded to fix that, I'm on Py2 still.

Changed the shebang to `/usr/bin/env python` though.


### Manual Install: Requirements

- python2.7
- py markdown (pip install markdown)
- py pygments (pip install pygments)
- py yaml (pip install pyyaml)
- py docopt (pip install docopt)

Further a 256 color terminal (for now best with dark background) and font support for a few special separator characters (which you could change via config).

> For light terms you'd just need to revert the 5 colors from the themes, since they are sorted by luminocity.

I did not test anything on windows.

### Manual Install: Setup

Distribution via setuptools. If setuptools is not installed, run:

pip install setuptools


Use the setup.py provided inside, I.e. run:

sudo ./setup.py install
(or ./setup.py install --user to install only for the current user)



## Usage

### CLI

```markdown
# Usage:

mdv [-t THEME] [-T C_THEME] [-i] [-x] [-X Lexer] [-l] [-L] [-c COLS] [-f FROM] [-m] [-C MODE] [-M DIR] [-H] [-A] [MDFILE]

# Options:

MDFILE : Path to markdown file
-t THEME : Key within the color ansi_table.json. 'random' accepted.
-T C_THEME: Theme for code highlight. If not set: Using THEME.
-l : Light background (not yet supported)
-L : Display links
-x : Do not try guess code lexer (guessing is a bit slow)
-X Lexer : Default lexer name (default: python)
-f FROM : Display FROM given substring of the file.
-m : Monitor file for changes and redisplay FROM given substring
-M DIR : Monitor directory for markdown file changes
-c COLS : Fix columns to this (default: your terminal width)
-C MODE : Sourcecode highlighting mode.
-A : Strip all ansi (no colors then)
-i : Show theme infos with output
-H : Print html version

# Notes:

We use stty tool to derive terminal size. If you pipe into mdv we use 80 cols.

## To use mdv.py as lib:

Call the main function with markdown string at hand to get a
formatted one back. Sorry then for no Py3 support, accepting PRs if they don't screw Py2.

## FROM:

FROM may contain max lines to display, seperated by colon.
Example:

-f 'Some Head:10' -> displays 10 lines after 'Some Head'

If the substring is not found we set it to the *first* character of the file -
resulting in output from the top (if your terminal height can be derived correctly through the stty cmd).

## Code Highlighting

Set -C <all|code|doc|mod> for source code highlighting of source code files.
Mark inline markdown with a '_' following the docstring beginnings.

- all: Show markdown docstrings AND code (default if you say, e.g. `-C.`)
- code: Only Code
- doc: Only docstrings with markdown
- mod: Only the module level docstring


## File Monitor:

If FROM is not found we display the whole file.

## Directory Monitor:

We check only text file changes, monitoring their size.

By default .md, .mdown, .markdown files are checked but you can change like `-M 'mydir:py,c,md,'` where the last empty substrings makes mdv also monitor any file w/o extension (like 'README').

### Running actions on changes:

If you append to `-M` a `'::<cmd>'` we run the command on any change detected (sync, in foreground).

The command can contain placeholders:

_fp_ # Will be replaced with filepath
_raw_ # Will be replaced with the base64 encoded raw content
of the file
_pretty_ # Will be replaced with the base64 encoded prettyfied output

Like: mdv -M './mydocs:py,md::open "_fp_"' which calls the open
command with argument the path to the changed file.


## Themes

### Theme Rollers


mdv -T all [file]: All available code styles on the given file.
mdv -t all [file]: All available md styles on the given file.
If file is not given we use a short sample file.

So to see all code hilite variations with a given theme:

Say C_THEME = all and fix THEME

Setting both to all will probably spin your beach ball...

### Environ Vars

`$MDV_THEME` and `$MDV_CODE_THEME` are understood, e.g. `export
MDV_THEME=729.8953` in your .bashrc will give you a consistent color scheme.


```

> Regarding the strange theme ids: Those numbers are the calculated total luminocity of the 5 theme colors.

### Inline

mdv is designed to be used well from other (Py2) programs when they have md at hand which should be displayed to the user:

```python
import mdv

# config like this:
mdv.term_columns = 60

# calling like this (all CLI options supported, check def main
formatted = mdv.main(my_raw_markdown, c_theme=...)
```

> Note that I set the defaultencoding to utf-8 in ``__main__``. I have this as my default python2 setup and did not test inline usage w/o. Check [this](http://stackoverflow.com/a/29832646/4583360) for risks.

### Sample Inline Use Case: click module docu

[Armin Ronacher](http://lucumr.pocoo.org/2014/5/12/everything-about-unicode/)'s
[click](http://click.pocoo.org) is a great framework for writing larger CLI apps - but its help texts are a bit boring, intended to be customized.

Here is how:

Write a normal click module with a function but w/o a doc string as shown:
```python
@pass_context
def cli(ctx, action, name, host, port, user, msg):
""" docu from module __doc__ """
```

On module level you provide markdown for it, like:

```shell
~/axc/plugins/zodb_sub $ cat zodb.py | head
"""
# Fetch and push ZODB trees

## ACTION: < info | pull | push | merge | dump | serve>

- info: Requests server availability information
(...)
```
which you set at click module import time:

mod.cli.help = mod.__doc__


Lastly do this in your app module:

```python
from click.formatting import HelpFormatter
def write_text(self, text):
""" since for markdown pretty out on cli I found no good tool
so I built my own """
# poor man's md detection:
if not text.strip().startswith('#'):
return orig_write_text(self, text)
from axc.markdown.mdv import main as mdv
self.buffer.append(mdv(md=text, theme=os.environ['AXC_THEME']))

HelpFormatter.orig_write_text = HelpFormatter.write_text
HelpFormatter.write_text = write_text
```

The output has then colors:


and at smaller terms rewraps nicely:


Further, having markdown in the module ``__doc__`` makes it simple to add into a global project docu framework, like mkdocs.



## Customization

You can supply all CLI args in `$HOME/.mdv`, in yaml format.

More flex you have via `$HOME/.mdv.py`, which is execed if present, when
running `main`.

Alternatively, in [mdv.py](mdv.py) you can change some config straight forward.

```python
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Config
txt_block_cut, code_pref, list_pref, br_ends = '✂', '| ', '- ', '◈'
# ansi cols (default):
# R: Red (warnings), L: low visi, BG: background, BGL: background light, C=code
# H1 - H5 = the theme, the numbers are the ansi color codes:
H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, R, L, BG, BGL, T, TL, C = \
231, 153, 117, 109, 65, 124, 59, 16, 188, 188, 59, 102
# Code (C is fallback if we have no lexer). Default: Same theme:
CH1, CH2, CH3, CH4, CH5 = H1, H2, H3, H4, H5

code_hl = { "Keyword" : 'CH3', "Name" : 'CH1',
"Comment" : 'L', "String": 'CH4',
"Error" : 'R', "Number": 'CH4',
"Operator": 'CH5',
"Generic" : 'CH2'
}

admons = {'note' : 'H3', 'warning': 'R',
'attention': 'H1', 'hint' : 'H4',
'summary' : 'H1', 'hint' : 'H4',
'question' : 'H5', 'danger' : 'R',
'caution' : 'H2'
}

def_lexer = 'python'
guess_lexer = True
# also global. but not in use, BG handling can get pretty involved...
background = BG

# normal text color:
color = T

show_links = None

# could be given, otherwise read from ansi_tables.json:
themes = {}


# sample for the theme roller feature:
md_sample = ''

# ------------------------------------------------------------------ End Config
```

Any importing module can overwrite those module global variables as well.

Should you need yet additional themes, add them to ``ansi_tables.json`` file by adding your ansi codes there.



## Screenshots

Random results, using the theme roller feature:


Note the table block splitting when the table does not fit (last picture).

## TODO

- Refactor the implementation, using a config class
- Lines separators not optimal ([nd](https://www.npmjs.com/package/nd) does better)
- Test light colorscheme
- Dimming
- A few grey scale and 8 color themes
- Sorting of the json by luminance
- Some themes have black as darkest color, change to dark grey
- Common Mark instead of markdown

## Credits

[pygments](http://pygments.org/) (using their lexer)

[tabulate](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/tabulate)

and, naturally, the [python markdown project](https://pythonhosted.org/Markdown/authors.html)

Update: Next version will be CommonMark based though...


## Updates

### July 2016:

Sort of an excuse for the long long time w/o an update:
I did actually start working on a more solid version based on CommonMark but
that went a bit out of scope, into a general html terminal viewer, which will
probably never be finished :-/

So at least here an update containing the stuff you guys sent as PRs, thanks all!!

- installation and dependencies via a setup.py (thanks
[Martin](https://github.com/althonos))
- supporting `echo -e "# foo\n## bar" | mdv -` and a 'light' theme (thanks
[Stanislav](https://github.com/seletskiy))
- and a few other improvements regarding python2.7, file location and pyyaml, thanks all.

Also:

- fixed the most obvious bugs with nested ordered and unordered lists
- fixed bold marker
- different color highlighting for the list markers
- added a source code highlighting mode, which highlights also docstrings in markdown (`-C <mode>`)
- some tests in the tests folder
- using `textwrap` now for the wrapping, to avoid these word breaks a few complained about
- you can supply the default lexer now, e.g. `-X javascript [-x]`
- fixed but with not rendered strong texts
- pip install mdv


### Nov 2016:

- travis
- Inline link tables


### Lastly

*sorry for the aggressive promotion of setdefaultencoding in the example shot, hope it does not hurt anybody's feelings;-) I'm only on posix and don't deal with last century encodings. Py2's text handling with it just rocks.*