Markdown heading HTML IDs (or better text / id implementation)

[matthewlarkin]

Dear SQLPagers,

I'm wondering if there's a way to add HTML ids to markdown headings, etc -- particularly helpful for inner document links (ie, mysite.xyz#my_subheading)

For instance, one might do the following:

<!-- traditional approach -->
<h2 id='my_subheading'>My subheading here</h2>

<!-- some markdown parsers support this -->
## My subheading {#subheading}

SQLPage doesn't seem to support either as the traditional tag approach escapes the HTML characters, and the custom syntax is not supported by the SQLPage markdown parser.

---

NOTE: I initially thought the text component would help here with it's id parameter, but it seems when you pass markdown to contents_md, the markdown gets parsed first before the text block is rendered. For instance:

select 'text' as component,
  'about' as id,
  sqlpage.read_file_as_text('info/about.md') as contents_md;

renders something like the following:

<!-- markdown gets rendered as HTML first -->
<h2>My subheading</h2>
<p>My content . . .</p>
<p id="about"></p> <!-- then SQLPage kicks in with the `text` container -->

---

☝️ That being said, there is a workaround: calling the text component with the id first then for the first row selecting the markdown and passing it into the contents_md row level parameter (undocumented).

select 'text' as component,
    'about' as id;
select sqlpage.read_file_as_text('assets/info/about.md') as contents_md;

This puts a blank paragraph with the id first, followed immediately by the parsed markdown.

<p id="about"></p> <!-- SQLPage kicks in with the `text` container first -->
<!-- markdown gets rendered as HTML subsequently -->
<h2>My subheading</h2>
<p>My content . . .</p>

This does work, albeit a little hacky (as the markdown content is not given the id -- some rando paragraph prior gets it 😄). Although the paragraph does provide some nice margin on top the content when you do scroll to it ...👏

---

Still, I think allowing markdown headings IDs could be a more elegant solution. Any ideas? 🤔

[lovasoa]

The id coming after the rendered markdown was an oversight. This should be fixed. Can you test the latest build ?

[matthewlarkin]

Oh wonderful! I will check

[lovasoa]

Concerning new markdown syntax options, you can propose them / open pull requests on https://github.com/wooorm/markdown-rs

[matthewlarkin]

I'm not a Rust developer (yet), but I will touch base with a Rust colleague of mine who I've recently turned on to SQLPage 😎👌