Binah: The General Purpose Academic Markup Language

A simple, powerful, and accessible markup language designed for academic papers, monographs, and general-purpose document editing.

Binah is the next-generation, Markdown-inspired markup language focused on simplicity and power for academic and general uses. It is the follow-up to the Markers Markup Language, aiming to be the easiest and most accessible academic paper formatting language available.

Binah is built entirely in Haskell, for robust performance and ease of use.

🚀 Key Features and Advantages

Binah is engineered for a hassle-free writing and formatting experience, providing the tools needed for professional-grade academic output without the complexity of traditional typesetting systems.

• Markdown-Inspired Syntax: Forget complex opening and closing tags. Binah adopts a simple, intuitive syntax, making it incredibly easy to learn and fast to write.
• Automatic Document Structure: Features like automatic chapter numbering and summary/table of contents generation are built-in, handling tedious formatting tasks automatically.
• Monographic Infrastructure: Designed specifically to handle the structure of monographs, theses, and research papers.
• Built in Haskell: The entire Binah compiler is implemented in Haskell, ensuring high performance, reliability, and robust type-safety.
• Custom Styling Language (TISS): Binah will feature its own custom stylesheet language (TISS), allowing for granular control over the document's appearance, either in a separate file or inline.
• Complete Text Formatting: Full support for bold (*text*), italics (_text_), strikethrough (~text~), and underline (__text__), along with monospaced text and colored text using Hexadecimal or RGB syntax.

📜 Creating a Binah Document

A .binah document is structured for clarity and ease of use, separating essential document components: Title, Metadata, and Content.

Document Structure

A Binah document always begins with the title, followed by optional metadata, and then the content.

1. Title: The very first line of the document.
2. Metadata: Essential academic information defined by simple keywords.
3. Content: The main body of the paper, composed of text, chapters, lists, etc.

Metadata Keywords

Metadata is defined using simple keywords:

• By: (Author Names)
• At: (Institution/Affiliation)
• Mentor: (Advisor/Mentor's Name)
• Location: (City or General Location)
• Date: (Publication Date)
• Keywords: (SEO-friendly terms, separated by commas)

Example Document

A Binah Document Title
By: Person A, Person B
At: University of Open Source
Location: Brazil
Keywords: Binah, Markup Language, Academic Paper, Haskell

This is the main body text, which is *not encapsulated* in any structural tag.

# This is a Chapter (Level 1 Heading)
Chapters act as sections and automatically populate the table of contents.

# This is the Next Chapter.
In the future, more tags shall be available.
## Nested Chapters (Level 2 Subheading)
Chapters are automatically closed when a new one is encountered.

🎨 Text Formatting

Binah utilizes familiar Markdown-like syntax for inline text styling:

Syntax	Output	Description
*This is bold*	This is bold	Bold text
_This is italic_	This is italic	Italicized text
~This is strikethrough~	This is strikethrough	Strikethrough text
__This is underlined__	This is underlined	Underlined text
`Monospaced`	Monospaced	Code/Monospaced font
{#FF0000}(Red Text)	(The text in red)	Colored text (Hex)
{0,0,255}(Blue Text)	(The text in blue)	Colored text (RGB)

🧭 Roadmap

Binah is in active development. Our goal is to offer a comprehensive feature set essential for academic publishing and research:

• Text Formatting
• Chapters and Arrow-Lists
• Document Metadata
• HTML Export
• Automatic Chapter and Summary/ToC Generation
• Bullet Lists, Arrow Lists
• Link, Image, Video and Audio Support
• References, Quotes, and Footnote Support
• Page and Printing Support
• PDF Export
• Exportação para Norma ABNT (ABNT Norm Export - Crucial for Brazilian academia)
• Custom Stylesheets with TISS
• Euler (Binah's Simple Math Language) Implementation

❓ Markers Users

If you are coming from the previous Markers Markup Language, the new syntax is a major shift towards simplicity. However, we plan to support legacy Markers tags in the future via a special directive to ensure a smooth transition for existing users.