this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2025
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No Stupid Questions

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I know there's probably a good technical or historical explanation, but it's very irritating to copy/paste text into Lemmy to have it looking like poo after posting. Is there an Android editor that will add double spaces to ends of lines so it's wysiwyg? Bonus if it will also insert "> " at the beginning of lines for quoting selected blocks of text. Maybe this can be done with a JavaScript webpage?

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[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 25 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The idea of MD is that text remains human readable both in your plain text editor and as HTML.
In the editor you'll want to add line breaks because other wise you get horizontal overflow.
The final HTML does things differently because of the concept of pargaraphs.

I find that neither "historical" nor irritating.

Some implementations of MD do exactly what you want btw.

[–] 9limmer@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I kind of understand what you're saying. But in an age of smartphones, I have to manually add double spaces at the end of every line for the end product to display as it appears when editing it. This probably seems trivial and stupid for folks on desktop, but even Discord has this figured out. Is this something that needs to be added at the app level?

[–] Steve@communick.news 4 points 1 week ago

I'm not sure how it's more or less trivial if you're using a phone or desktop. In either case it's extremely trivial.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Well, using markdown on a phone is like hammering screws into a wall, so don't complain when the pictures fall off the wall.

[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago

Maybe markdown-friendly keyboard apps exist for your phone?

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

But in an age of smartphones, I have to manually add double spaces at the end of every line for the end product to display as it appears when editing it.

They can put a man on the moon, but they can't make markdown work for my specific use case??

Canned laughter

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world -3 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Hot take: Sentences are suppose to end in a double space. It is why smartphones will sub in a . if you do a double space.

"Supposed to"? That originated back before desktop publishing existed, when typed communication (as in typewriters) were only monospace, and adding 2 spaces between sentences made text easier to read.

In modern times (as in the past 30 years or so, i think), while adding 2 spaces between sentences might remain as a preference or in a style guide, you haven't been "supposed to" do it.

Maybe now that markdown is so commonplace, it'll make a return?

[–] kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They also delete the second space lol

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)
[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

That comes from typewriters, before kerning was a thing. Each key press moved the paper an equal distance, so every single character was evenly spaced. Even narrow characters like i or l had the same amount of space on each side of them.

For instance, if I type out “qip” or “dib” notice that the tails for the q, p, d, and b are right next to the i? There’s not a whole lot of space on each side of the i, because the i is a very narrow character that doesn’t take up very much horizontal space. In monospaced font, that i would take up a lot more horizontal space on the line.

Monospaced font is easier to read when sentences end with a double space. It helps visually identify that a sentence has ended, and that the space isn’t simply due to a few narrow characters. But with modern kerned fonts, the double space is pointless. Phones sub in a period for simplicity, so you don’t need to reach for the period key. It doesn’t actually include the double space at all; it removes the first space and replaces it with a period. If you’re “supposed” to double space after each sentence, why does your phone remove that first space?

[–] Sunsofold@lemmings.world 1 points 1 week ago

Ending a sentence with two spaces differentiates the end of the sentence, full stop. Kerned, monospace, serif, sans, heavy weight, light weight, double spaced lines, single spaced lines, whatever. Two spaces at the end of the sentence helps make the end of a sentence clearer in every case.

[–] XeroxCool@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

If that was the reason smartphones place periods, they'd leave double spaces and throw a period before them. They don't, they replace a space with the period. It's just a shortcut with a large target button.

[–] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 2 points 1 week ago

If you type a double space on iOS it’ll insert just one space then a period. So becomes ..

[–] 9limmer@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

That's an entirely different issue. I think what you're talking about is just a shortcut for typing quickly. Even then a double space is replaced with a period and single space.

~~I'm talking about two paragraphs with two linefeeds in between will be displayed as a single paragraph unless there are two spaces before the linefeeds.~~

[–] Steve@communick.news 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Two linefeeds will separate two paragraphs.

Two spaces are needed before a linefeed
to keep them in one paragraph.
Like this.

[–] 9limmer@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yeah, had a brain fart. I mean your second case. This seems trivial when typing short comments as you've done, but it's incredible tedious when copying and pasting long lists and articles.