Caution
This installer will replace/update the built-in Markdown prototype in your Tinderbox document. Any customizations you have made to the existing Markdown prototype may be overwritten.
A one-line installer that adds an enhanced Markdown writing environment to any Tinderbox document — with syntax highlighting, GitHub-styled preview, and HTML export. Includes Mermaid diagrams, MathJax math rendering, and Prism code highlighting out of the box.
If MultiMarkdown (mmd) is installed, the prototype uses it for HTML preview with sed post-processing fixes. Otherwise, it falls back to Tinderbox's built-in CommonMark parser.
Download install-tbx-markdown.tbx and open it in Tinderbox. It contains one note with the installer action code — just copy-and-paste into any Tinderbox to add the enhanced Markdown prototype.
Open any Tinderbox document, create a stamp with the following action code, and run it:
action(runCommand("curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jacobio/tbx-markdown/main/install.tbxc"));
All components are fetched from this repo at install time. Either method is safe to re-run.
| Component | Path | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Prototypes | /Prototypes/Markdown |
Markdown writing prototype with syntax highlighting and preview |
/Prototypes/Code |
Code/asset export prototype (raw text, no HTML markup) | |
| Highlighter | /Hints/Highlighters/Markdown |
Syntax highlighting for headings, bold, italic, links, code, etc. |
| Templates | /Templates/Text Only |
Plain text export (used by Code prototype) |
/Templates/HTML MD and Children |
Full HTML page with Prism, MathJax, and Mermaid support | |
| Assets | /Assets/Custom Styles |
Your CSS overrides (edit to customize) |
| README | /README (Markdown) |
In-document documentation |
The HTML template includes CDN-loaded support for:
- Mermaid — Diagrams and flowcharts. Use a fenced code block with the
mermaidlanguage tag. Automatically respects light/dark mode. - MathJax — Math rendering. Use
\(...\)for inline math and\[...\]or$$...$$for display math. - Prism — Syntax highlighting for code blocks. Use fenced code blocks with a language tag (e.g.,
```javascript). Includes copy-to-clipboard and GitHub-themed light/dark styles.
These work in both Preview and HTML export with no additional setup.
The installer checks for mmd on your system by sourcing ~/.zprofile before running which mmd, with fallbacks to known Homebrew paths (/opt/homebrew/bin/mmd, /usr/local/bin/mmd) and system paths (/usr/bin/mmd). If found, it sets $HTMLPreviewCommand to pipe through mmd with sed post-processing that fixes links to internal and exported notes:
- Leading slashes in href attributes
- Spacing after closing anchor tags
- Bold/italic formatting around links
If mmd is not found, the prototype uses Tinderbox's built-in "CommonMark" parser.
- Tinderbox (macOS)
- MultiMarkdown (optional, for enhanced preview)
MultiMarkdown can be installed via Homebrew:
brew install multimarkdownAfter installing, verify it works:
mmd --versionIf you install MultiMarkdown after running the installer, just re-run the stamp to update the prototype.
tbx-markdown/
├── install-tbx-markdown.tbx # Tinderbox file with installer stamp
├── install.tbxc # Main installer (fetched by the one-liner)
├── highlighters/
│ └── markdown.tbxc # Syntax highlighter definitions
├── templates/
│ ├── html-md.html # HTML page export template
│ └── html-md-item.html # HTML child item template
├── assets/
│ └── custom-styles.css # Custom CSS overrides
├── config/
│ └── sed-fixes.sh # sed pipeline for mmd post-processing
├── readme-markdown.md # In-document README (installed into Tinderbox)
└── LICENSE
- GitHub Markdown CSS (CDN) by Sindre Sorhus
- GitHub Prism theme by Katorly
MIT