I typically use: bash,html,css,scss,php and a few others – text is usually the default state in most markdown capable apps I’ve used. Interestingly, not so with Discourse. Good tip!
I thought I remembered us finding it defaults to bash here but it would appear not … I actually cant seem to find which hint results in the default appearance.
(I’ve tried sooo many)
1 Like
Well, the default appearance is simple to explain.
Everyhing after # is a comment.
# This is a comment
## This should have been a markdown heading 2
### And so on...
And with the bash hint, it’s still a comment, only neater:
# This is a comment
## This should have been a markdown heading 2
### And so on...
Yeah … still … whether bash or js or css or ruby or … anything else I can think of … does not result in the default appearance.
Hence … I still dont know what the default is.
Unassigned. I think the default appearance must simply be inherited from the site or discourse stylesheet, without an actual default hint being applied. I don’t know what else would explain it.
??
I dunno.
I think its some language, I just dont know what. (not html, apache, java…)
A better default would probably be text … but this has been talked about before
Ah … actually that thread has it its ‘auto’
# This is a comment
## This should have been a markdown heading 2
### And so on...
But what thats defined as or how its parsed … 
As you say, that would be better, and consistent with most other applications. The default appearance would then be preformatted text. Period. Not this mishmash. 
Of course, then comes the annoyance of explaining the use of hints to the general populace.
Found it … its shell … whatever that means.
Undefined == Auto == Shell == ??? 
1 Like
Just checked and it’s not shell.
```auto
# comment
echo something
## another comment
### yet another comment
echo something else
```shell
# comment
echo something
## another comment
### yet another comment
echo something else
```bash
# comment
echo something
## another comment
### yet another comment
echo something else
```
# comment
echo something
## another comment
### yet another comment
echo something else
Im not sure why the discrepancy.
But it doesnt seem to match what happens here.
``` (or not putting anything)
# This is a comment
## This should have been a markdown heading 2
### And so on...
# comment
echo something
## another comment
### yet another comment
echo something else
```auto
# This is a comment
## This should have been a markdown heading 2
### And so on...
# comment
echo something
## another comment
### yet another comment
echo something else
```shell
# This is a comment
## This should have been a markdown heading 2
### And so on...
# comment
echo something
## another comment
### yet another comment
echo something else
Oh wait. you are right. the last shell doesnt match. 
( nooooooooooooo )
1 Like
I wondered why the first comment was different for your tests.
Of course it’s auto detecting the language. I still wonder why the first comment is different.
FWIW, I almost always do blank, for:
$ free -h
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 15Gi 6.0Gi 2.3Gi 106Mi 7.8Gi 9.5Gi
Swap: 7.8Gi 1.1Gi 6.7Gi
Just in case it’s actually a client-side thing, this is what it looks like for me:
But this is highlighted:
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 15Gi 6.0Gi 2.3Gi 106Mi 7.8Gi 9.5Gi
Swap: 7.8Gi 1.1Gi 6.7Gi
As far as I know, Discourse uses highlightjs to detect and highlight languages – probably the issue in somewhere in this library.
2 Likes
They did look the same for a while.
https://xkcd.com/2880
How to stop discourse fetching web site preview
`https://xkcd.com/2880`
Markdown Link Title
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
Markdown Link Title (code)
[Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic](https://arthurcclarke.org/#start "The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. - Arthur C. Clarke")
If you simply start the line with one or several hashes (#), it’ll also automatically become a link.
Try it. 
The leading # makes it a heading, which is automatically converted to an anchor, essentially for internal navigation purposes.
Speaking of navigation, have you tried the new TOC functionality yet?
