recommendation for offline Markdown renderer (for GitHub .md)?

[Zenaan Harkness]

On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 09:17:51AM -0400, Karl wrote:
> Hey,  I haven't been been able to keep up with the messages but found this
> one.
> 
> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020, 8:14 AM Zenaan Harkness <zen at freedbms.net> wrote:
> 
> > Anyone got a strong recommendation for an offline Markdown renderer which
> > can at least do a passable job rendering GitHub's .md style?
> >
> > grip uses GitHub API, contacts the server on every render, seems to not
> > even cache CSS files...
> >
> > Also!:
> >
> > GitHub supports inlining section files (very useful for reducing file
> > size/ dividing one large file) with this:
> >
> > <file name="section_2.md">
> >
> > So having that work with an offline renderer would be gold™...
> >
> 
> Zenaan, I would suggest taking any existing offline markdown renderer and
> adding the features you need to it.  What are you building?


Just wanting to preview things like the zfs tutorial before uploading, without having to be connected to preview.

I was just asking in case someone had good personal experiences to recommend or warn against - I am warning against `grip` as it connects to github.com on every render - not exactly offline :)

I need something that supports separate sub-files, included with these lines:

   <file name="section_2.md">


> I usually use offline markdown rendering for decentralized wikis.  I'm
> interested in collaborating on projects that could be used to support
> decentralized wikis.  I can hack on c/c++, python, nodejs, bash, perl, and
> possibly php or ruby right now, well enough to add a needed new feature to
> a markdown renderer.  I use git and work for causes rather than money.
> 
> I'm having trouble accessing my email right now, so if I don't reply trying
> another channel to reach me if possible can help.


No rush.  The rfs tute is mostly finished, but I do think we should have an offline .md renderer that actually works offline, and somehow supports inclusion of sub-files to allow structuring of documentation which is to be combined in more than one way - years ago I used Docbook SGML, which had this feature; today, it's markdown everywhere and no point going against the tide.

GitHub supports the "<file name="section_2.md">" form to include sub-files, so having this work would be convenient as I am currently using GitHub, but a good offline renderer would cause me to use whatever mechanism it supports for subfile inclusion.

I have no experience with rendering MarkDown before the last few days.  I thought `grip` was offline:

   Package: grip
   Version: 4.2.0-3

   Description: Preview GitHub Markdown files like Readme locally

   Grip is a command-line server application written in Python that uses the
   GitHub markdown API to render a local readme file. The styles come directly
   from GitHub, so you'll know exactly how it will appear. Changes you make to
   the Readme will be instantly reflected in the browser without requiring a page
   refresh.


Evidently I misunderstood the Debian package description above, which in hindsight is unclear and lead me to waste time on it...