Here is an informational post on a cool tool that I’ve found.

The tool is called Markdown here. It is a way to use a common rich text markup language and use it to make rich text in many web forms. It is (mostly) compatible with the LIGO a-log.

The steps to use it are:

• Install the browser extension (compatible with Chrome, Firefox and Safari)
• Input text with some Markdown style syntax into the alog
• Convert it to rich text with the Markdown here menu button (or ctrl-alt-m)
• Post to the alog

Some of the features that you can use are:

Math

It will accept latex formulae:

quoted monospaced code

	class INIT(GuardState):

    request = True
    def main(self):
         log("initializing subordinate nodes...")
         nodes.set_managed()
    def run(self):
        return True

tables

optic	bias	how i feel
ETMX	400cts
PR2	5cts
ITMY	100V	tired

there are other features (links, images, etc)…

some tips on using with the alog:

As you are making your post, you will want to preview what it looks like, but if you want to edit, you must always change back to plain text before you edit, or you may lose changes.

By default, the return key in the alog makes a double line break. Markdown here works a lot better with single line breaks. You can make single line breaks with shift+return.

Because most browsers can’t display math fonts by default, the latex formulae are actually images, which is a bit inelegant, but it works. You must also explicitly enable latex formulae in the settings before it will work.

As a bonus, you can also use it with gmail (and thunderbird)! So you can put math in your emails as well.

Good luck!