md2vim/README.md

# Md2Vim #

Writing technical documentation for [Vim](http://www.vim.org/) extensions is not very exciting; having to manually
convert what you've just written in [Markdown](https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/) to the
[vimdoc](http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/usr_toc.html) help format is even less fun. As I grew tired of doing this
over and over for my [ArgWrap](/projects/argwrap/) extension, I decided to formally solve this problem for myself and
others, creating the Md2Vim converter tool.

Md2Vim is implemented in [Golang](https://golang.org/) as a custom renderer for the
[blackfriday](https://github.com/russross/blackfriday) Markdown processor. Maintainability, ease of use, and beautiful
vimdoc output were primary considerations in its design.

## Installation ##

If you already have the Go environment and toolchain set up, you can get the latest version by running:

```
$ go get github.com/FooSoft/md2vim
```

Otherwise, you can use the pre-built binaries for the platforms below:

 * [md2vim_darwin_386.zip](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_darwin_386.zip)
 * [md2vim_darwin_amd64.zip](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_darwin_amd64.zip)
 * [md2vim_freebsd_386.zip](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_freebsd_386.zip)
 * [md2vim_freebsd_amd64.zip](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_freebsd_amd64.zip)
 * [md2vim_freebsd_arm.zip](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_freebsd_arm.zip)
 * [md2vim_linux_386.tar.gz](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_linux_386.tar.gz)
 * [md2vim_linux_amd64.tar.gz](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_linux_amd64.tar.gz)
 * [md2vim_linux_arm.tar.gz](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_linux_arm.tar.gz)
 * [md2vim_netbsd_386.zip](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_netbsd_386.zip)
 * [md2vim_netbsd_amd64.zip](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_netbsd_amd64.zip)
 * [md2vim_netbsd_arm.zip](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_netbsd_arm.zip)
 * [md2vim_openbsd_386.zip](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_openbsd_386.zip)
 * [md2vim_openbsd_amd64.zip](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_openbsd_amd64.zip)
 * [md2vim_plan9_386.zip](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_plan9_386.zip)
 * [md2vim_snapshot_amd64.deb](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_snapshot_amd64.deb)
 * [md2vim_snapshot_armhf.deb](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_snapshot_armhf.deb)
 * [md2vim_snapshot_i386.deb](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_snapshot_i386.deb)
 * [md2vim_windows_386.zip](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_windows_386.zip)
 * [md2vim_windows_amd64.zip](http://dl.foosoft.net/md2vim/md2vim_windows_amd64.zip)

## Example ##

Let's generate the documentation for [ArgWrap](/projects/argwrap/) by executing the command shown below (split into
multiple lines due to length considerations):

```
$ md2vim \
    -desc "Wrap and unwrap function arguments, lists, and dictionaries in Vim" \
    -cols=120 \
    README.md \
    doc/argwrap.txt
```

And here is the animation of it happening in a terminal window; notice the pretty help file layout Vim.

![](http://foosoft.net/projects/md2vim/img/demo.gif)

## Requirements ##

Md2Vim makes the reasonable assumption that your document headings are arranged in a single-root hierarchy for the
purposes of table of contents generation. As long as you have exactly one top level heading (usually the title of your
extension), with sub-headings following it (directions for installation, configurations, etc.) everything will look and
work great. If you don't want to follow this hierarchy in your help file, you can still use this tool as long as you
disable table of contents generation.

## Usage ##

Executing Md2Vim with the -help command line argument will trigger online help to be displayed. The list below provides
a more detailed description of what the parameters do.

*   `cols`

    The number of columns used for laying out vimdoc files to make them look as good as possible with your content.
    Notice that file contents will not be wrapped to this value; this is purely for such things as horizontal rule
    widths and help tag positioning. This defaults to 80, but that's a bit too narrow for some people.

*   `desc`

    Vim help files are supposed to start with the following two fields on the first line:

    ```
    filename.txt Description of this help file's contents
    ```

    The first field is the filename of the generated vimdoc help file; the second is the description can you provide
    with this parameter.

*   `norules`

    By default, we generate horizontal rules above level 1-2 headings, as shown below:

    ```
    ================================================================================
    Level 1 Heading
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Level 2 Heading
    ```
    If you don't like the way it looks you can turn it off.

*   `notoc`

    If you don't want to generate a table of contents you can specify this argument. The table of contents lists all of
    the child headings underneath the primary heading; it is always inserted right before the second heading in your
    document.

*   `pascal`

    By default, all help tags get converted to lower case and space delimited words are joined with underscores.

    ```
    rigellians-how_to_cook_for_fourty_humans
    ```

    If you prefer the PascalCase way of doing things, set this flag and your output will look like this:

    ```
    Rigellians-HowToCookForFourtyHumans
    ```

*   `tabs`

    If you don't like four space tabs for some reason you can change it to something else with this parameter.