A new update for article submissions is now live on the SwarmNN website! You can now use Markdown when writing your articles. You can also take a look at your articles with live preview on the SwarmNN Editorial Page.
In this article, I'll walk you through the new Markdown editor features and show you how to make your articles look great and clean.
Basic formatting
You can now add bold text and italic text using these markdowns:
Bold text:
**Neuro** or __Neuro__
Italic text:
*Neuro* or _Neuro_
You can combine them together like this.
Due to design flaws, underline and strikethrough markdown are currently unavailable. Tell me why you need it in the Discord thread so I can add it in a later update.
Additionally, you can also add basic bulleted lists like this:
- Item 1
- Item 2
- Item 3
...
Result:
- Neuro
- Evil
- Vedal
For small code snippets (in very rare cases), you can add a code markdown to your articles like this:
`turtle.soup();`
Result: turtle.soup();
For multi-code markdowns, add 2 more backticks like this: ```
Don't forget to close them!
Lead markdown
To add an introduction line of a news article or an editorial piece (like this one), you can add a lead markdown at the beginning of your article. Whether or not you will add this markdown is up to you but it is recommended if you want to hook your readers.
::lead Lead markdown
Result:
Neuro caught a great white shark with only her fishing pole and a dream. Neuro explains how she does it.
Section Dividers
To split your article into clear sections, add only three dashes:
- - -
The result can easily be found here (look below this text).
Subheadings
If you have a long article and want to organize between sections, you can add a subheader markdown to your article (after a section divider). You can also add a header but it's best to use a subheader in this case. Why would you need another header?
## Subheading
Result:
Detailed reports of the Vedal Bank robbery incident
Quotes & Citations
To include a quote from a person in your article, you can add the quotes markdown. You can also cite the person who said the quote by adding the cite markdown below the quote markdown. This will not work outside the quote markdown and the cite markdown is optional.
> This is a blockquote
[cite: Author]
Result:
"I took Evil out the back, and I shot her. I shot her dead. She's dead. I killed her. Um, so yeah. That's why she's not on stream today."
[cite: - Vedal on November 9, 2023]
Hyperlinks
Hyperlinks are clickable links. You can add hyperlinks to your article by wrapping your text in brackets and add a link between the parenthesis like this:
[Link text](https://example.com)
Result: Evil's first tweet that caused an uproar
Links will open in a new tab when clicked.
Images
You can add images into your article using the image markdown. It's the same as the link markdown but with an exclamation mark added at the beginning. Optionally, you can also edit the image caption by adding the caption in quotes next to the image link like this:
Result:
If no image caption is added, the alt text ("Image") will be displayed instead.
Embedded HTML
You can use HTML tags as much as you like to enhance your articles (such as <iframe> for YouTube videos or Twitter embeds).
However,
<script>tags or anything that can execute Javascript are not allowed for security reasons. If I ever see you use this without a valid explanation on what's it's doing, your article will be rejected automatically.
Dialogue Markdown (Beta)
There's also a new dialogue markdown feature currently in beta. This markdown shows a conversation or a transcript in an article. To use this markdown, you need to click on the Dialogue button on the Post Editor and write your conversation or transcript like this:
Person A: "Hi!"
Person B: "Hello!"
Result:
I hope you enjoy this Markdown update as much as I do and all the creative freedom it brings to your articles. Go wild with it!
Many more updates are coming soon and actual published articles will be rolled out at a later date.
Thanks for reading, and happy writing! ✨