#level/beginner

The idea of markdown is that you write plain text with some additional markup that even without further processing (like rendering it to HTML, or Live Preview) you could just read and understand. It was inspired by conventions used in plain-text e-mails, before e-mail supported rich formatting.

Basic markup


To write markdown, you just write text. But then to emphasize something you can add _underscores_ around a phrase to make look italic, or **asterisks** to make it bold. You can also use ~~tildes~~ for strikethrough and ==double equals== for highlighting.

Links

To add external links you use the [site link](https://silverbullet.md) syntax, which will appear as site link. If you want to link to other pages in your space you use the [[wiki link syntax]], e.g. SilverBullet. To change the link text you can use the [[SilverBullet|best PKM evah]] syntax: best PKM evah.

Lists and tasks

You can create three types of lists:

Unordered lists are created by prefixing a line with * or -. For instance:

  • This is an unordered list
  • And this is a second item


Since this tool is called SilverBullet, we prefer you to use the * bullet (which will even appear in silver — clever huh?).

Ordered lists are created by simply putting a number followed by a period at the beginning of a line:

  1. This is the first item
  2. This is the second item


SilverBullet also supports a variant of the unordered list item to define task. Tasks are defined using the * [ ] Task name syntax:

  • This is a task
  • And this is another


When you click the checkbox, it will toggle its state and replace the inside the box with x. SilverBullet also supports custom task statuses by putting text in between [ and ]. When you click on such custom task states, it will cycle through all the task states it’s seen in your space:

  • IN PROGRESS This task is in progress
  • DONE This task is done
  • TO DO This task is still to be done


Headers

Markdown supports various levels of headings, which generally are created by prefixing a line with one or more #. The more #‘s the deeper the header nesting.

Quotes

You can use block quotes by prefixing lines with >:

“If you don’t know where you’re going, you may not get there.”
— Yogi Berra


Code

For the programmers among us, there are three ways to mark up code. If you want to write some code inline, you can use backticks: this is code. For long code snippets, you can either use a four-space indent:

    
This is code
And another line


or (preferably) the triple-back tick notation, which also allows you to (optionally) specify a coding language:

function hello() {
   return "sup";
}


SilverBullet supports Syntax Highlighting for many languages out of the box.