Daniel Nashed's Blog

Markdown as a Way Out for the Domino Blog Template?

It’s 2026, and the Domino blog template is still not something I enjoy using.
Every time I post something with more complex formatting, I end up reformatting it after submission — sometimes more than once — just to get it into a decent shape.

This isn’t a simple CSS problem. The real issue is how the blog template processes and rewrites the content you add to a post.
Cleaning this up is not trivial. The template logic would need significant changes, and even then we would still be limited by Notes’ rather dated HTML and CSS support.


I don’t want to move my blog to a different system. Over the years it has accumulated a lot of useful information — for others, but also for myself.
(By the way, the main posts without comments can be replicated from home.openntf.net/openntf-net via NRPC without cross-certification).
So instead of trying to fix the blog template itself, I started thinking about a different approach.

A Different Idea: Markdown as the Source


What about extending the blog template with support for Markdown?
The idea would be simple:

• The input is Markdown
• Markdown is converted to HTML
• Both Markdown and HTML are stored in the document in parallel

The converted HTML would not necessarily render perfectly in the Notes client, but it would render exactly as intended when served to the web. Notes would just need a simpler representation.
I already have code that converts Markdown to HTML, and I have tested storing both formats using multipart MIME in body fields. This works well and still allows re-editing later.

Notes vs. Web Rendering


Today, I already have to restrict myself to very basic CSS if I want content to look acceptable in the Notes client.
With a Markdown-based approach, we could clearly separate the two worlds:

• A simple CSS for rendering in the Notes client
• A modern CSS (for example GitHub’s Markdown CSS) for web browsers

The content stays the same. Only the presentation changes.

Beyond the Blog Template


This approach may actually be useful beyond blogging.
I started a database some time ago that stores Markdown converted to HTML using multipart MIME. Notes clients can render this content natively, and the Markdown source can still be edited later.
This would also work for regular Notes documents. All that’s really needed is:

• Edit in a separate database
• Store it back into the currently open document in MIME with MD as text and HTML
• Have eventually two different versions. Notes needs the CSS directly in the MIME part.
   

Here is a screen print of what I have already working.
Note: In this database “Show Page Source” shows the HTML


How do you like the idea?

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