<h2 id="what-is-retext">What is ReText?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://github.com/retext-project/retext">ReText website</a> on GitHub says that ReText is a simple but powerful editor for Markdown and reStructuredText markup languages.</p>
<p>Doing a search on the HPR site returned the following two references to ReText.</p>
<p><a href="https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps.php?id=1832">The excellent Markdown and Pandoc HPR 1832 episode by b-yeezi makes reference to ReText</a></p>
<p><a href="https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps.php?id=3167">Dave Morriss mentioned using ReText as a possible tool when sending in shownotes as markdown is preferable to plain text. Refer to HPR 3167</a></p>
<h2 id="retext-version-info">Retext Version Info</h2>
<p>As of the 1st of January 2021 I am running ReText version 7.0.1 the latest version was 7.1.0 this was last updated on the 4th of April 2020.</p>
<h2 id="why-i-am-covering-this">Why I am covering this</h2>
<p>I’m covering this because in HPR show 3167 Dave Morriss said that Markdown was a preferred way to submit shownotes. Prior to this I had supplied my shownotes in plain text.</p>
<h2 id="what-is-markdown">What is Markdown?</h2>
<p>I guess I first must cover what markdown is I found the following definitions:-</p>
<p><a href="https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/">Description of Markdown from Wikipedia</a></p>
<p>Markdown is a lightweight markup language for creating formatted text using a plain-text editor. John Gruber and Aaron Swartz created Markdown in 2004 as a markup language that is appealing to the human users in its source form.[9] Markdown is widely used in blogging, instant messaging, online forums, collaboration software, documentation pages, and even readme files Link <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown</a></p>
<p><a href="https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/">Description of Markdown from John Gruber's website, one of the co founders of Markdown.</a></p>
<p>Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML).</p>
<h2 id="example-text-used-in-the-show-and-how-it-looks">Example text used in the show and how it looks</h2>
<pre><code># This is a level 1 heading

## This is a level 2 heading

### This is a level 3 heading
</code></pre>
<h1 id="this-is-a-level-1-heading">This is a level 1 heading</h1>
<h2 id="this-is-a-level-2-heading">This is a level 2 heading</h2>
<h3 id="this-is-a-level-3-heading">This is a level 3 heading</h3>
<h2 id="list-of-useful-links">List of useful links</h2>
<p>Finally here are useful links that are available from within the ReText program. They can be found within the Help / About ReText menu:-</p>
<p><a href="https://github.com/retext-project/retext">Link to ReText website</a></p>
<p><a href="https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax#precode">Link to Markdown syntax</a></p>
<p><a href="https://docutils.sourceforge.io/docs/user/rst/quickref.html">Link to reStructuredText syntax</a></p>
<h2 id="final-thoughts">Final thoughts</h2>
<ul>
<li><p>Using ReText to pull these shownotes together disciplined me to hopefully put more meaningful titles within my shownotes.</p></li>
<li><p>It helped my to create meaningful descriptive links which will hopefully help accessibility for the visually impaired.</p></li>
<li><p>I edited the text on this occasion in live preview mode I found this made it very easy to see how the final version would look.</p></li>
<li><p>I think I ended up with more polished shownotes that hopefully needs fewer and hopefully no input from our band of HPR volunteers working behind the scenes.</p></li>
</ul>
