release-2.0.txt 3.2 KB

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  1. Python-Markdown 2.0 Release Notes
  2. =================================
  3. We are happy to release Python-Markdown 2.0, which has been over a year in the
  4. making. We have rewritten significant portions of the code, dramatically
  5. extending the extension API, increased performance, and added numerous
  6. extensions to the distribution (including an extension that mimics PHP Markdown
  7. Extra), all while maintaining backward compatibility with the end user API in
  8. version 1.7.
  9. Python-Markdown supports Python versions 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6. We've even
  10. released a version converted to Python 3.0!
  11. Backwards-incompatible Changes
  12. ------------------------------
  13. While Python-Markdown has experienced numerous internal changes, those changes
  14. should only affect extension authors. If you have not written your own
  15. extensions, then you should not need to make any changes to your code.
  16. However, you may want to ensure that any third party extensions you are using
  17. are compatible with the new API.
  18. The new extension API is fully documented in [[writing_extensions]]. Below is a
  19. summary of the significant changes:
  20. * The old home-grown NanoDOM has been replaced with ElementTree. Therefore all
  21. extensions must use ElementTree rather than the old NanoDOM.
  22. * The various processors and patterns are now stored with OrderedDicts rather
  23. than lists. Any code adding processors and/or patterns into Python-Markdown
  24. will need to be adjusted to use the new API using OrderedDicts.
  25. * The various types of processors available have been either combined, added,
  26. or removed. Ensure that your processors match the currently supported types.
  27. What's New in Python-Markdown 2.0
  28. ---------------------------------
  29. Thanks to the work of Artem Yunusov as part of GSoC 2008, Python-Markdown uses
  30. ElementTree internally to build the (X)HTML document from markdown source text.
  31. This has resolved various issues with the older home-grown NanoDOM and made
  32. notable increases in performance.
  33. Artem also refactored the Inline Patterns to better support nested patterns
  34. which has resolved many inconsistencies in Python-Markdown's parsing of the
  35. markdown syntax.
  36. The core parser had been completely rewritten, increasing performance and, for
  37. the first time, making it possible to override/add/change the way block level
  38. content is parsed.
  39. Python-Markdown now parses markdown source text more closely to the other
  40. popular implementations (Perl, PHP, etc.) than it ever has before. With the
  41. exception of a few minor insignificant differences, any difference should be
  42. considered a bug, rather than a limitation of the parser.
  43. The option to return HTML4 output as apposed to XHTML has been added. In
  44. addition, extensions should be able to easily add additional output formats.
  45. As part of implementing markdown in the Dr. Project project (a Trac fork), among
  46. other things, David Wolever refactored the "extension" keyword so that it
  47. accepts either the extension names as strings or instances of extensions. This
  48. makes it possible to include multiple extensions in a single module.
  49. Numerous extensions are included in the distribution by default. See
  50. [[available_extensions]] for a complete list.
  51. See the [[change_log]] for a full list of changes.