The No-Markup-Markup markup language

No-Markup-Markup (nmm) is a heavily opinionated markup language. Its intended use is for writing scientific manuscripts. It is opinionated in at least the following senses:

nmm is intended to be as what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) as possible, only deviating from this goal for necessities such as cross-references.
In line with the WYSIWYG goal, available markup options are very few. Users are expected to make heavy use of the quite generous Unicode coverage of symbols used in scientific writing. For example, instead of LaTeX's $\alpha$ users are expected to simply write α (U+03B1), or even 𝛼 (U+1D6FC “Mathematical Italic Small Alpha”).
Currently, nmm has two semantics: raw text and HTML. The raw text semantics is not flexible at all: it reflects a specific approach to manuscript organization and layout that the nmm creators like. The HTML semantics is flexible only in the sense that one might override the default CSS. (One may of course also do some JavaScript magic—please do not!) Of course, one may write one's own semantics. nmm is capable of generating an XML representation of the abstract syntax tree of an nmm source. Thus using these XML representations, one may implement one's own semantics—though doing so most likely would be a non-trivial amount of work.

Project status

Heavily work-in-progress:

currently very unpolished;
not user friendly—unforgiving grammar, uninformative error messages and inadequate documentation.

Why design another markup language for scientific writing? What is wrong with, for example, Markdown?

While Markdown is indeed quite WYSIWYG, the designer of the language wanted even more WYSIWYG—in particular, WYSIWYG with respect to the intended semantics.
The designer of the language wanted a particular semantics—for example, sections and paragraphs numbered using the section symbol (‘§’) respectively the paragraph symbol (‘¶’). To the best of the language designer's knowledge, no close-to-WYSIWYG language provided this semantics out of the box.
For the language creators, it has so far been a fun and educational project!

Examples

Do note that the nmm source below include tabs. These tabs cannot be turned into spaces. When working with nmm sources, a tab width of 6 spaces corresponds to the raw text semantics.

nmm source:

This is a no-markup-markup document, sporting the following features:

[]	Bullet lists:

	-	Here is one bullet item.

	-	Here is another one.

[]	Numbered lists with labels that are either

	[]	automatic, or

	[!]	custom.

	Furthermore, each item can be *named* and *referred to*:

	[]	ITM:x
		The named item can be referred to anywhere in the
		document.

	[]	ITM:y
		When referring to [ITM:x] above, any common initial path
		shared between the location of the referring expression
		and the location of its referent will be omitted. The same
		applies with respect to [ITM:z] below.

	[S]	ITM:z
		Of course, items with custom labels can also be named!

Due to the feature mentioned in [ITM:y], a reference to [ITM:x] or
[ITM:z] occurring elsewhere may appear differently.

[]	Displayed lines of text suitable for mathematical equations,
	which are either

	()	automatically labeled (and named),	DSP:one
	(+)	custom labeled (and named), or,		DSP:two
		unlike [DSP:one] above, unlabeled.

default raw text semantics:

This is a no-markup-markup document, sporting the following
features:

(1)   Bullet lists:

      ─     Here is one bullet item.

      ─     Here is another one.

(2)   Numbered lists with labels that are either

      (a)   automatic, or

      (!)   custom.

      Furthermore, each item can be n̲a̲m̲e̲d̲ and r̲e̲f̲e̲r̲r̲e̲d̲ ̲t̲o̲:

      (b)   The named item can be referred to anywhere in the
            document.

      (c)   When referring to (b) above, any common initial path
            shared between the location of the referring expression
            and the location of its referent will be omitted. The
            same applies with respect to (S) below.

      (S)   Of course, items with custom labels can also be named!

Due to the feature mentioned in (2)(c), a reference to (2)(b) or
(2)(S) occurring elsewhere may appear differently.

(3)   Displayed lines of text suitable for mathematical equations,
      which are either

      (a)   automatically labeled (and named),
      (+)   custom labeled (and named), or,
            unlike (a) above, unlabeled.

More examples in TODO

Try it out

With a flake-enabled* install of the Nix package manager:
```
nix run --refresh github:no-markup-markup/nmm
```
(The --refresh flag may be omitted once a first version is released.)

* This one should work-out-of-the box:

https://github.com/DeterminateSystems/nix-installer
Without a flake-enabled install of the Nix package manager: sorry, but currently you are on your own.† The following might work:
- Check flake.nix for buildInputs and make sure you have these installed.
- Clone this repo and run make bin.
- Run ./bin/nmm.
† Help with how to package for other systems very much appreciated! The creators of nmm has no packaging experience outside of the nix ecosystem.

Features

Do note that many of the nmm sources below include tabs. These tabs cannot be turned into spaces.

Text blocks

nmm source:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor
incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis
nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore
eu fugiat nulla pariatur.

default raw text semantics:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do
eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim
ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut
aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in
reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla
pariatur.