**actual** markdown support
The current markdown implementation is simply bad as it's not actual markdown. Instead it's some kind of in-line format guesser that changes what you type on enter.
- it doesn't work in the client
- it doesn't apply to messages submitted via webhook integrations
- it doesn't work on cut-n-pasted text
- it's not complete (tons of markdown syntax missing)
- it doesn't allow simple shortcuts via "/extension" (looking at you, /giphy)
in-line reformatting is slow and often unpredictable in the way it responds as you type, making for a poor experience, especially as you attempt to reformat a message you started typing.
Remember Teams has risen as a response to Slack, which is a collaboration of developers first. A lack of solid markdown is simply alienating the very group that made this tool popular ... which is short sighted. Teams should be fast from the keyboard, predictable in what it outputs ... and basically comfortable. The current markdown mess fails on all these fronts.
Justin King
shared this idea
22 comments
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Anonymous
commented
I would upvote for this 1000 times if I could. Too many times my cursor gets stuck in a quote block that has no way out. Pasting code is a pain. This makes Teams feel like a variant of texting app rather than a communication channel for professional.
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Ruslan Kaybyshev
commented
It is incredibly frustrating that a gaming/meme client, Discord, has by far the best interface and markdown support of any modern chat app.
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Andrew Quee
commented
I'm not a huge markdown fan, but I appreciate this suggestion - it's enragingly annoying trying to remember what markup format any particular forum uses, then inevitably using the wrong one, or an out of date format. "Is it URl first and text second, or the other way around?"
There should only be one version of each format used commonly on all platforms.
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Adrian Robert
commented
The "guessing" approach works quite inconsistently. At the very least a cleanup parse should be applied after the message is submitted, because if you don't type it in the expected order (for example type "[something]()" and then paste a URL into "()") it will fail.
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Shimmy Weitzhandler
commented
This is very important.
Should allow links. -
Long Nguyễn Xuân commented
I love an "plain mode" for input textbox too
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Artem Ploujnikov commented
What I'm missing the most is being able to share small code snippets by typing without having to click through obscure menus, a la discord (with highlighting)
example:
```csharp
if (foo == bar)
{
DoCoolStuff();
}
``` -
Over a year later and it seems MS is convinced we want to use some kind of word editor instead of markdown in our chat ... and I think this is largey due to the lack of consolidation. Lets fix that. Below are all the markdown compalints I was able to query. Itsa everywhere, people dont like it.
MS YOUR STANCE ON AVOIDING MARKDOWN IS WRONG.
at the minimum let us do something similar to redit where we can select a markdown editor.
links:
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/33051283-markdown
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/18551077-markdown-preview
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/18610792-add-markdown-support-to-wiki-tab
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/33009394-markdown-support-not-all-there
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/20588818-raw-markdown-editor-for-messaging
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/18532621-improved-markdown-support
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/37078792-wiki-markdown-support -
Anonymous
commented
"A lack of solid markdown is simply alienating the very group that made this tool popular .."
absolutely true
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Will Black
commented
This is so important. Please implement. I was going to move my entire company to teams, but without it I would be hamstringing just under 100 developers. I dont know if its because of the fundamental foundation or because the original poster was irritatingly agressive, but please fix.
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Anonymous
commented
Syntax highlighting does not seem to be supported in wikis
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Raymond Siring
commented
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Elijah Rose
commented
I go to UAB and we were deciding between Discord, MS Teams, and Slack. I've used all 3. I do like Teams organization of files, however it has some annoying features and feels overally somewhat lackluster. However, I can deal.
However, I used MarkDown extensively -- everything from writing notes to brainstorms. The fact that I cannot paste MarkDown into a post is teeth-gratingly frustrating. It's enough that I barely even open MS Teams anymore, as I know for sure that I do not want to type in it (I have VS Code setup perfectly for all of my editing). It's gotten to the point where I'm advocating switching the entire club to Discord. Discord isn't even that great and has some bare minimum MD and no real file management, but with all of its slice of life features and such its preferable at this point.
Please, if you want this to be a real tool, then give us real tools. As the OP said, it feels extremely half-baked atm, a weird attempt at MD via a WYSIWYG lens.
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Rehan
commented
absolutely ridiculous. what were they thinking??
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Anonymous
commented
I'm genuinely surprised at how far down I had to go to find this, given the constant griping I hear about it around the office. It truly is infuriating; just enclosing code in backticks - my most common formatting use - is not just awkward, it's plainly broken. It simply doesn't work right.
The kicker is that this is a solved problem. In fact, the solution is simpler than what they have in place. This shouldn't be difficult!
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Anthony
commented
This is the most annoying and bug ridden "feature" I've ever seen in such widely adopted commercial software. I just don't get it.
Isn't Microsoft embarrassed about this horrible design decision? Why hasn't anyone higher up at Microsoft demand they change the way this feature works?
Obviously the markdown should be applied **after** a message has been sent. This is how every other piece of software handles markdown and they do so for a reason!
Not only this, but the markdown doesn't even work most of the time. A lot of the time my cursor will get "stuck" inside markdown blocks and there is no way I can get my cursor out, unless I delete the whole message. It's just really bad... C'mon Microsoft! What the heck are you guys thinking?! (or maybe they're not thinking at all)
PLEASE APPLY MARKDOWN AFTER MESSAGE IS SENT!
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Thomas Williams
commented
Yet another place where Teams tries to emulate Slack and fails. At the very least, provide an option to turn of the live preview feature. Incredibly annoying.
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Kris Mackintosh
commented
I am forced to use Teams beacuse where I work uses it.
I have come from a Slack environment and this is probably my bigest annoyance, especially no propper back tick support for code -
Tim McLaughlin
commented
I echo this, 100%. Markdown rendering should be applied _after_ I submit the message. Add a preview option if you must, but editing should be done in plaintext. That is the point and the power of markdown, and it's why MD has been adopted by so many developer-focused things across the internet.
I can suffer through the animated smileys that I can't disable. I can bear the horrible gif/giphy support. I can even make peace with the fact that I can never use any emoji starting with ":s" because that constipated smiley shows up.
But without being able to use markdown in a sensible way to communicate with fellow devs and techs -- a purpose for which Slack was very well-suited -- I basically avoid using Teams altogether, which is a real shame and has been difficult to work around, productivity-wise.
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Urbanek
commented
After using Slack and now being forced to use Teams, I can say that there is literally NOTHING that Teams does better than slack.Markdown support is yet another disappointment.
I think that it would be wise to shy away from any company that uses Teams over Slack. It's a sure indicator that they don't care about using good technology.