Broken option "Keep Markdown Line Break Whitespace"

[claudiofantacci]

Prerequisites

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Description

Keep Markdown Line Break Whitespace does not work with the option Removing Trailing Whitespace, even though the documentation says that "[...]. Enable this option to keep this whitespace in Markdown files, even if other settings would remove it.".

Steps to Reproduce

1. Enable both options
2. Write two lines having the first with two trailing spaces (i.e. you want to break line)
3. Save

Expected behavior:
Trailing spaces should not be removed because of the option Keep Markdown Line Break Whitespace.

Actual behavior:
Trailing spaces are removed.

Reproduces how often:
Always.
You have to disable Removing Trailing Whitespace or use system-scoped properties.

Versions

macOS 10.12.6

Atom : 1.21.1
Electron: 1.6.15
Chrome : 56.0.2924.87
Node : 7.4.0

apm 1.18.5
npm 3.10.10
node 6.9.5 x64
python 2.7.10
git 2.13.0

[Ben3eeE]

Thank you for the report!

I have a few questions to check if this is a duplicate of #137

• Do you have the language-gfm package enabled?
• Do you have the grammar of the file set to GitHub Markdown?

[claudiofantacci]

Hi @Ben3eeE,

let's go in order.

Do you have the language-gfm package enabled?

It is disabled in my Atom settings (...and I was unaware of it!).
I made this tests:

Do you have the grammar of the file set to GitHub Markdown?

I guess that the answer is Yes. And I elaborate more your two questions with the following table.

Keep Markdown Line Break Whitespace always ON

Safe Mode	language-markdown	language-gfm	Removing Trailing Whitespace	Result
ON	OFF	OFF	OFF	Present
ON	OFF	OFF	ON	Trimmed
ON	OFF	ON	OFF	Present
ON	OFF	ON	ON	Present
OFF	OFF	OFF	OFF	Present
OFF	OFF	OFF	ON	Trimmed
OFF	OFF	ON	OFF	Present
OFF	OFF	ON	ON	Trimmed
OFF	ON	OFF	OFF	Present
OFF	ON	OFF	ON	Trimmed
OFF	ON	ON	OFF	Present
OFF	ON	ON	ON	Trimmed

IMHO, the bold-faced Results are wrong, but with different comment on each:

• OFF | OFF | ON | ON this should always work, note in fact that ON | OFF | ON | ON keep whitespaces
• OFF | ON | OFF | ON this may not be working because of incompatibility with 3rd party language-markdown
• OFF | ON | ON | ON this should work because language-gfm is enabled and should (right?) have some sort of precedence over language-markdown

[Ben3eeE]

It is disabled in my Atom settings (...and I was unaware of it!).

Yes language-markdown disables language-gfm. I believe there is some setting for this in the language-markdown package

OFF | OFF | ON | ON this should always work

I agree however there might be some other package the interferes with the setting. Try this:

1. Disable language-markdown
2. Enable language-gfm
3. Close any open markdown files
4. Restart Atom
5. Check if the setting works

This should force the Grammar to be set correctly.

OFF | ON | OFF | ON this may not be working because of incompatibility with 3rd party language-markdown

Yes.

OFF | ON | ON | ON this should work because language-gfm is enabled and should (right?) have some sort of precedence over language-markdown

No it doesn't have precedence over language-markdown. This is determined by the Grammar. If it's set to GitHub Markdown the setting should work. language-markdown has it's own scopes defined in the grammar which are not included by this setting.

And there is a bug report for this: #137

[claudiofantacci]

No it doesn't have precedence over language-markdown. This is determined by the Grammar. If it's set to GitHub Markdown the setting should work. language-markdown has it's own scopes defined in the grammar which are not included by this setting.

Ok, good to know this for the future.

I agree however there might be some other package the interferes with the setting. Try this:

Disable language-markdown
Enable language-gfm
Close any open markdown files
Restart Atom
Check if the setting works

It works! I'll keep this configuration then.
The issue is related to language-markdown, I'll discuss this with them.

Thanks for the support!

[Ben3eeE]

Thanks for the support!

You're welcome 🙂

[evilmtv]

@claudiofantacci Issue still persists, switching to language-gfm seems to be the only way.
Did you manage to bring it up with language-markdown?

[Ben3eeE]

@evilmtv The issue on language-markdown is here burodepeper/language-markdown#200. You may want to check there for updates 🙂

[samuraijane]

For others who may read this in 2019 or later. I am using Atom 1.35.1. I had installed language-markdown (which disabled language-gfm). After removing language-markdown and re-enabling language-gfm, Atom was still removing the 2-space trailing whitespace in my .md files. The solution, as noted by @Ben3eeE, was to close the open tabs of the .md files and restart Atom. After doing this, the 2-space trailing whitespace persists in my .md files. Restarting Atom without closing the tabs had no effect. Be sure to close your tabs.