ByteMD

ByteMD is a Markdown editor component built with Svelte. It could also be used in other libraries/frameworks such as React, Vue and Angular.

Features

1. Lightweight and framework agnostic: ByteMD is built with Svelte. It compiles to vanilla JS DOM manipulation without importing any UI Framework runtime bundle, which makes it lightweight, and easily adapted to other libraries/frameworks.
2. Easy to extend: ByteMD has a plugin system to extend the basic Markdown syntax, which makes it easy to add additional features such as code syntax highlight, math equation and Mermaid flowcharts. You can also write your own plugin if these ones don't meet your needs.
3. Secure by default: Cross-site scripting(XSS) attack such as <script> and <img onerror> have been correctly handled by ByteMD. No need to introduce extra DOM sanitize steps.
4. SSR compatiable: ByteMD could be used in the Server-side rendering(SSR) environment without extra config. SSR is widely used in some cases due to its better SEO and fast time-to-content in slow network connection.

Installation

npm install bytemd
# or
yarn add bytemd

Usage

There are two components: Editor and Viewer. Editor is the Markdown editor, as the name suggests; Viewer is commonly used to display rendered Markdown results without editing.

Svelte

<template>
  <Editor {value} on:change={handleChange} />
</template>
<script>
import { Editor, Viewer } from 'bytemd'

let value;
function handleChange(e) {
  value = e.detail.value
}
</script>

React

import { Editor, Viewer } from 'bytemd/react';

const App = () => {
  const [value, setValue] = useState('');

  return (
    <Editor
      value={value}
      onChange={(v) => {
        setValue(v);
      }}
    />
  );
};

Vue

<template>
  <Editor :value="value" @change="handleChange" />
</template>

<script>
import { Editor, Viewer } from 'bytemd/vue';

export default {
  components: {
    Editor,
  },
  data() {
    return {
      value: '',
    };
  },
  methods: {
    handleChange(v) {
      value = v;
    },
  },
};
</script>

Vanilla JS

import { Editor, Viewer } from 'bytemd';

const instance = new Editor({
  target: document.body, // DOM to render
  props: {},
});

instance.on('change', (e) => {
  const value = e.detail.value;
  console.log(value);
  // ...
});

Technical details

ByteMD uses remark and rehype ecosystem to process Markdown. The complete process is as follows:

1. The markdown text is parsed to an AST
2. The Markdown AST could be manipulated by several remark plugins
3. The Markdown AST is transformed to a HTML AST
4. The HTML AST is sanitized for security reason
5. The HTML AST could be manipulated by several rehype plugins
6. The HTML AST is stringified to HTML
7. Some extra DOM manipulation after the HTML being rendered

It could also be described as a flowchart:

The 2,5,7 steps are designed for user customization via ByteMD plugin API.

Plugins

Package	Version	Description
@bytemd/plugin-footnotes		support footnotes
@bytemd/plugin-highlight		highlight code blocks
@bytemd/plugin-math		support math equation
@bytemd/plugin-mermaid		support mermaid diagram and flowchart

Write a plugin

TODO

License

MIT