Support file extension: .q.md, .qmd.md, or ._q_.md?

[dipterix]

Description

For this feature, Github would render md and qmd pretty differently. Would it be nice so people can edit quarto directly on Github?

Our editors were (mostly) born before computer technology becomes so popular. They are not used to Github pull, commit, push, but are very happy to edit directly on Github. With the visual markdown renderers, they can easily see the results. However, *.qmd is not yet supported by Github.

Would it possible to support compiling files like .q.md like .qmd?

[mcanouil]

I don't understand. "qmd" files are recognised by GitHub as Markdown-based files, why do you want weird file extensions?
Changing the extensions makes no sense as it won't change anything about Quarto/Pandoc spcific markdown syntax.

• https://github.com/jjallaire/linguist/blob/master/lib/linguist/languages.yml#L5050-L5061

[dipterix]

@mcanouil This is what Github looks like when you edit qmd files. Github treats qmd as code and only shows document diffs. You can't see the render output when editing the files

I don't think "qmd" files are recognised by GitHub as Markdown-based files, otherwise Github will render qmd's markdown components when previewing the file.

This is what you have when editing md files. Github shows the preview when you edit it.

My proposal is to let Github edit work naturally with quarto documents.

This is the same idea behind quarto visual editor: you see what you get. However, for non-programmers with zero knowledge on markdowns and programmings, it's quite tricky to get them install quarto properly. Supporting extensions like .q.md seems to be an low hanging fruit.

I see in https://github.com/jjallaire/linguist/blob/e689491c945e1cf3b90fabe8c9fdc2d6a41c2769/lib/linguist/languages.yml#L3361-L3373

Literate CoffeeScript:
  ...
  extensions:
  - ".litcoffee"
  - ".coffee.md"

Can rmarkdown be

RMarkdown:
  type: prose
  color: "#198ce7"
  wrap: true
  ace_mode: markdown
  codemirror_mode: gfm
  codemirror_mime_type: text/x-gfm
  extensions:
  - ".qmd"
  - ".rmd"
  - ".q.md"    # <-- or "r.md" ?
  tm_scope: source.gfm
  language_id: 313

[dipterix]

It's the thrid-party maintainer's choice on whether this should be supported. Apple does not need your agreement to stop shipping x86 CPUs. I'm only proposing supporting this extension so quarto can compile it. If the extension is not useful, it will die eventually.

I don't think it's worthwhile to tell you the benefit of using Github editor because you are not gonna use it anyway. You can't just deny it when people think something is useful/ok and you have another thing that to you is superior.

[cscheid]

I'm going to step in and call a timeout here, for everyone.

We've heard the rationale for it, and the discussion has reached the end of its utility.

I am the lead dev on Quarto, and file extension interactions are super tricky to get right because they affect multiple operating systems and existing legacy applications. We appreciate the input but at this point, we have no plan to change this.

[dipterix]

I'm going to step in and call a timeout here, for everyone.

We've heard the rationale for it, and the discussion has reached the end of its utility.

I am the lead dev on Quarto, and file extension interactions are super tricky to get right because they affect multiple operating systems and existing legacy applications. We appreciate the input but at this point, we have no plan to change this.

Got it, so there is no such intention to add the support. Does pre-render allow you to change the file extension from md to qmd? Then I can still work on md and when it comes to compiling the project, all the mds are converted to qmd?

Just to add that in the worst-case scenarios, I can add to github action to make such conversion. Should this project not support it, it's probably fine. The devs need to have one more step to call such conversion before rendering the project locally.