You Asked, I Built: Introducing C-Mark, a Hive Markdown Viewer

Hey everyone,

Today's post is about a new tool that exists for one simple reason: someone from the community asked for it.

This morning, a user asked me a great question: "Hey man, do you have a hive tool that can show the markdown text for a hive post that you did not author?" The comment was later removed, so I want to respect their privacy by not calling them out, but I thought the idea was fantastic. There are plenty of reasons why you might want to see the raw source of a post: to learn how someone achieved a certain formatting trick, to properly quote a section, or just out of pure curiosity.

So, I did just that. I'd like to introduce c-mark (as in, "see-markdown"), a simple utility now available on the site.

C-Mark is a straightforward web tool that lets you view the raw Markdown source for any post on the Hive blockchain.

One of its handy features is that it accepts verbose URLs, meaning you can load a post directly without any clicking around. For example, to view the markdown of one of my recent posts, you can just go to this link:

https://thecrazygm.com/hivetools/utility/cmark/thecrazygm/nectarengine-v010-released-now-fully-typed

Of course, you can also just visit the site and enter the post's author and permlink manually. Once loaded, you'll get a beautiful and clean editor view of the source text, thanks to the excellent EasyMDE JavaScript library.

This whole tool exists because one person had a simple question that sparked a great idea. It's a perfect example of why I love building for this community. So, I want to use this as an opportunity to say: if you have an idea for a tool, no matter how small or simple it seems, please don't be shy about asking or suggesting it. Chances are, if you think it would be useful, other people will too!

As always,
Michael Garcia a.k.a. TheCrazyGM