Markdown IDE

This extension for VSCode and compatible editors provides IDE-grade editing and refactoring support for Markdown files. This is most useful for large collections of Markdown documents containing lots of links between them.

This extension works best with Markdown files formatted via Prettier or dprint. It ignores files in the .git, node_modules, and vendor folders. If you have any feedback or requests, please open a ticket.

autocomplete links to Markdown documents

Typing [ triggers autocompletion for links to Markdown files. The link title is the first heading in the linked file. If present, Markdown IDE uses the titleRegEx setting in tikibase.json to abbreviate the titles of auto-completed links.

autocomplete image tags

Typing ![ triggers autocompletion for image tags.

autocomplete headings

Typing # triggers autocompletion with the existing headings in all Markdown files of the current workspace.

autocomplete footnotes

Typing [^ triggers autocompletion for footnotes.

rename file ⇒ update links to this file

When you rename a file, all links to this file in other Markdown files would be broken. Markdown IDE fixes this by changing the target of these links to the new filename.

delete file ⇒ remove links to this file

When you delete a file, all links to this file in other Markdown files would be broken. Markdown IDE fixes this by removing these links.

rename Markdown file title ⇒ update links containing this title

When you update the primary heading of a document (its top-most H1), Markdown IDE can update the matching title of links pointing to this document. To use this feature:

• put the cursor into the top-most H1 heading and run VSCode's rename symbol refactor (press F2)
• alternatively, run the Markdown IDE: Rename document title command

go to definition

Markdown IDE supports the go to definition movements (ctrl+mouseclick orF12) for links in Markdown files. If bi-directional links are activated, following a link to another Markdown document always moves the cursor to the first backreference to the file you came from. If bi-directional links are not activated, it jumps to the linked heading within the target document.

find all references

When you highlight a Markdown note title (the top-level heading in a Markdown file) and activate VSCode's find all references feature (by choosing it from the context menu or hitting ctrl-shift-F12, Markdown IDE will locate every link across your workspace that points to the current file.

extract new file with selected title

When the selection highlights a single line, Markdown IDE provides an "extract file with this title" refactor. It creates a new file with the selected text as its title and replaces the selection with a link to this new file.

extract new file with selected content

When the selection highlights multiple lines, Markdown IDE provides an "extract file with this content" refactor. It asks the user for a title, creates a new file with the given title and the selected text as its content, and replaces the selection with a link to this new file.

"link to note" refactor

When selecting text that is also the title of an existing note, Markdown IDE offers a code action that replaces the selection with a link to the respective note.

Tikibase integration

Tikibase is a linter for Markdown-based wikis and knowledge bases. If you have a Tikibase configuration file file in your document repo and the Tikibase linter is installed, Markdown IDE integrates with it.

Run linters and auto-fixes

Markdown-IDE runs tikibase check when you save files, and it highlights the identified issues in VSCode. You also get code actions to fix identified issues. You can also trigger tikibase fix via the command palette.

TitleRegex

If present, Markdown IDE uses the titleRegEx setting in tikibase.json to shorten auto-completed link texts.

For example, say we want to link to the note titled:

# Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

By default, an auto-completed link looks like this:

Consider the [Gross Domestic Product (GDP)](https://github.com/kevgo/vscode-markdown-ide/blob/HEAD/gross-domestic-product.md)

That's verbose and repetitive. Instead, let's just use the abbreviation GDP as the link title. To make this happen, add the following to tikibase.json:

{
  "titleRegEx": "\\(([^)]+)\\)$"
}

This titleRegEx extracts the last word in the note title if it’s wrapped in parentheses. With this setting in place, auto-completed links now look like:

Consider the [GDP](https://github.com/kevgo/vscode-markdown-ide/blob/HEAD/gross-domestic-product.md)

Here’s an animation showing the feature in action: