Markdown Syntax Support in Document Listing Categories

[njlyon0]

Description

I've been using the document listing feature of Quarto (described here https://quarto.org/docs/websites/website-listings.html) and have been really liking it with one exception. When you have a lot of categories (i.e., >15) the "Categories" sidebar becomes really difficult to navigate, particularly if the text of the category is long and/or wraps awkwardly within the sidebar.

I'd love if I could use Markdown syntax to bold/italicize/etc. some of the categories to make the tags both more distinct within a particular page and in the "Categories" sidebar on the page where someone can filter blog posts/cards/etc. As it is, only formatting for changing text color is properly interpreted in the page that does the listing but not in the sub-page which looks very awkward and hack-y.

From Quarto's guidance on customizing listing behavior (described here: https://quarto.org/docs/websites/website-listings-custom.html) it seems like this could be solved with some sort of custom EJS template but that feels like a ton of legwork for something that feels--to me--like it should be the default behavior to begin with.

[njlyon0]

As an example of what I'm talking about. See below for screen captures of (1) the styling in a Quarto doc, (2) the previewed page with the categories, and (3) the categories sidebar in the page that does the listing.

[mcanouil]

Eventhough the alt text are not the usual default "image": "quarto-doc", "categories-page" are quite not helpful unfirtunately.

Important

Accessibility: To improve accessibility, please add alternative text to your screenshots. This helps all users, including those using screen readers, to understand the context of the images. A brief description can make a big difference! See Good Alt Text, Bad Alt Text — Making Your Content Perceivable.

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Note that you can (as a workaround) still use JavaScript to tweak it, for example to create alphabetical ordering on first letter basis: https://github.com/mcanouil/mickael.canouil.fr/blob/main/assets/scripts/categories-alphabetical.html

[njlyon0]

Thanks for pointing that out, I've edited the alt text to be more informative

[cscheid]

This class of problems are definitely Quarto bugs, but they're surprisingly hard to fix well (as you can tell by the fact that our behavior is very inconsistent). Realistically, we're only going to be able to fix this properly in Quarto 2, where we have much more granular control over the markdown processing pipeline.

[njlyon0]

I'll take some solace in knowing that it's at least not an easy fix! Is there a publicly-accessible wishlist/plan of features for Quarto 2 or is that what this community dialogue portal is for?

[cscheid]

It's a bit too early; we announced the project less than a month ago, and we're working on the foundations. (You're welcome to check out the ongoing process at the repo. We're making quick progress, but it's still truly far from being usable)