ExpressionEngine’s Textile plugin seems to be a bit borked, at least when comparing its output to not only the official implementation but a few others (e.g., TextMate).

Here’s an example: I was writing a comment on my blog, and typed in the following Textile snippet:

Here’s what the official Textile page returns:

This is what ExpressionEngine returns, however:

A few things seem to be going on here:

# Block-level elements such as blockquote, h1, h2, etc. are ignored by the Textile plugin if they appear on the first line of the textarea.
# Links aren’t processed if any non-URL characters are appended to the <code>“link”:URL</code> string.

There is, I believe, some wacky processing with lists (both ordered and unordered) as well, but I don’t have a test case handy. I’ve just experienced a lot of output inconsistencies with the plugin, and thought I’d raise the issue.

If anyone has any insight, it’d be much appreciated.

What version of the Textile plugin are you using? The current version is 1.1.1 (2.0.0 r2779)

Your note about the lists makes me wonder if you aren’t using a previously ‘broken’ version of the plugin - about which there are a few threads written here.

I actually upgraded to 1.1.1 (2.0.0 r2779) before posting, but the output before and after was the same.

There are definitely little quirks that need to be worked out. I’ve run into a few cases as well and I’ll update this thread if I can find them. I saw a tweet somewhere that said Huot is hoarding an updated version over at Happy Cog. I think Jason mentioned it…

Out of curiosity, what method are you using to render the field with Textile? Are you setting th field to Textile in the Control Panel, or are you wrapping the output with textile tags on the template?

I used your example content in a textile field I have on a local install. I definitely didn’t have any issue getting the blockquote to work on the first line, although I did have to put a space between the link and the n-dash (or whatever that was) to get the link to show correctly.

I’m setting the field formatting to Textile in the Control Panel, rather than on the template, though not sure if that makes a difference.

rockthenroll - 06 October 2008 08:21 AM

There are definitely little quirks that need to be worked out. I’ve run into a few cases as well and I’ll update this thread if I can find them.

That’d be awesome, Travis—please do.

mdesign - 06 October 2008 08:22 AM

Out of curiosity, what method are you using to render the field with Textile? Are you setting th field to Textile in the Control Panel, or are you wrapping the output with textile tags on the template?

That part of the template basically looks like this:

I don’t actually know where to set that value in the CP. Mind giving me a pointer?

Ah…I have never used the textile tags on the template side. I made a quick screencast for you (about a minute, quicktime) showing how to add textile or markdown via the control panel so you can get rid of the tags on your templates.

Add Textile/Markdown in the Control Panel

Hey, Ryan—thanks for the screencast. However, the problem I’m having is on comment fields, not entry/custom fields.

Still, if the first line bug isn’t occurring on entry fields, that’s important information. Thanks.

Also you should know that the demo site for the newest version of textile is here: http://textile.thresholdstate.com/

slapshotw - 06 October 2008 06:52 PM

Also you should know that the demo site for the newest version of textile is here: http://textile.thresholdstate.com/

Thanks, slapshotw—couldn’t find the 2.0 link before. Thank you.

Still, this raises another issue: EE’s implementation adds unnecessary markup to any HTML elements that might already be in the input.

For example, with this input:

Textile should give me:

  <blockquote>
      <p>Another sample.</p>
  </blockquote>

  <p>A <strong>simple</strong> example.</p>

<p>
How does this do with <a href=“http://unstoppablerobotninja.com/”>proper links</a>?<br />
</p>

Instead, EE yields:

Could there be any kind of linebreak before or after your text that’s causing Textile to think it should all be wrapped in a <p>?

(Just saw your signature by the way. Nice to see you on here. I was a big fan of the old Vertua site/work—and of course feel the same way about Airbag.)

slapshotw - 06 October 2008 07:15 PM

Could there be any kind of linebreak before or after your text that’s causing Textile to think it should all be wrapped in a <p>?

Unfortunately, no. For what it’s worth, I’ve spoken to a few other EE folks about this, and they’re having the same problems.

slapshotw - 06 October 2008 07:15 PM

(Just saw your signature by the way. Nice to see you on here. I was a big fan of the old Vertua site/work—and of course feel the same way about Airbag.)

Well, darn—thanks so much, sir. I believe I now owe you five dollars. :D

Is this happening to anyone else? I’ve spoken to other folks offline about this, but I’d be interested to hear if this is reproducible by anyone else on the forums.

Alternately, it’d be great to hear that there’s an updated, Textile 2.0-compliant version of the plugin in the works.

beep, comment text has formatting applied by default, just as custom fields do. Make sure you’ve set the formatting to none in the weblog settings (in the “Comment Posting Preferences” area). I’ve attached a screenshot of the preference.

Sean Sperte - 08 October 2008 12:43 AM

beep, comment text has formatting applied by default, just as custom fields do. Make sure you’ve set the formatting to none in the weblog settings (in the “Comment Posting Preferences” area). I’ve attached a screenshot of the preference.

Sean, thank you for the response. However, I’d already set the formatting to “None” in all relevant sections. Again, I’m inclined to think that this isn’t a problem with my configuration, but the plugin. Though I’d love to be proven wrong.

Ethan—did you get my PM?

Hi, slapshotw—sorry, I just saw it. I’d actually started another thread in the Bug forum since then, which seems to be providing a few answers.

@beep: This may help you (or anyone else) tying to format comments with textile or markdown: There’s a Comment Text Formatting extension out there. Usage looks like this:

Might not help with how the textile plugin works with comments, but hey.