Use Thematic Breaks (or Horizontal Rules) as Explicit Section Breaks

[Crissov]

There is currently no way to get this HTML from any Markdown with this plugin:

<section>
  <h1>Upper-Level Heading</h1>
  <p>upper-level section</p>
  <section>
    <h2>Lower-Level Heading</h2>
    <p>lower-level section</p>
  </section>
  <p>upper-level section again!</p>    <!-- this is impossible right now -->
</section>

It would be possible, though, if you treated thematic breaks (---, *** or ___) as explicit section breaks.

Upper-Level Heading
===================

upper-level section

Lower-Level Heading
-------------------

lower-level section

---

upper-level section again!

The three different available types could even be used for slightly different meanings:

• *** end the current section
• --- end all sections but the top level, except when the current context is the top level and in that case also start a new section
• ___ plain old <hr />

Related discussion from CommonMark Discourse

• Horizontal Rule or Thematic Break
• Explicit Section not possible
• Horizontal Rules as Hierarchical Section Breaks etc.

[arve0]

Hi!
Thanks for your contribution, thoroughly description and pointers of earlier discussions. First of, I think this sounds like a good idea. Implementing it should be relatively easy too.

A couple of questions:

1. Should this be the default behavior, or is it better to enable it through an option?
2. Regarding differentiating between the three types of thematic breaks, what is the convention/has other projects landed on the same meaning?

[Crissov]

1. 🤷 Your plugin, you decide. For slide presentations, it seems like an established convention, though.
2. I don’t think any other implementation has picked up on any differentiation. For * * *, I was thinking of its use in books, while --- resembles second-level headings in Markdown.

[Crissov]

PS: Other conventions would be possible and reasonable, too, of course, e.g.:

• ___ end current section </section>
• *** split section </section><section>
• --- start anonymous section <section>

[arve0]

PS: Other conventions would be possible and reasonable, too, of course, e.g.:

Yes. I guess one might need sections without headers, especially for slides. I like the *** idea, it gives a neat slide format.