TaskPaper to Markdown Conversion

TaskPaper
13

PS a note on mapping TaskPaper tab-indented outlines to the murkier and messier model used by Markdown and HTML:

There is more than one way to map TaskPaper to Markdown.

Consider the following TaskPaper tab-indented outline:

Some front material before our headings begin.

Primary project:
    Alpha
    Beta
    Embedded project:
        Iota
        Kappa
        Lambda
    Gamma
    Delta

Secondary project:
    Epsilon
    Zeta
    Eta
    Theta

In TaskPaper, tab-indents make the lines of ancestry very clear and unambiguous.

Gamma and Delta above are clearly children of the Primary project, and not of the Embedded Project

But it’s not very easy to make this clear in Markdown:

We could keep the line sequence and write something like:

Some front material before our headings begin.

# Primary project
Alpha
Beta

## Embedded Project
Iota
Kappa
Lambda

Gamma
Delta

# Secondary project
Epsilon
Zeta
Eta
Theta

But how clear are we then about the ancestry (if any) of Gamma and Delta ?

  • Are they top level material, not covered by headings, like the very first line ?
  • Are they part of the Embedded Project, separated only by a gap ?
  • Are they possibly (looks a bit unlikely), a continuation of the Primary project ?

So, for better or for worse, what this script chooses to do is to make the project groupings as clear as possible, even if that means we have to move a couple of lines:

In this approach, we can see at once that Gamma and Delta are part of the primary project (but the line order won’t always be quite the same as in TaskPaper):

Some front material before our headings begin.

# Primary project
Alpha
Beta
Gamma
Delta

## Embedded Project
Iota
Kappa
Lambda


# Secondary project
Epsilon
Zeta
Eta
Theta