Markdown Compose Mode - Remaining Work

Plugin: plugins/markdown_compose.ts

Pending Features

Not Yet Started

• Multi-pass transforms: design allows chaining; current implementation supports single transform per viewport
• Visual-line navigation: up/down should operate on display lines in Compose mode; currently behaves like Source mode
• Column guides rendering: stored in state but not drawn
• Context-sensitive Enter: Enter in compose mode should be context-aware (continue lists, add bullets, double-newline for paragraphs). Likely implemented via a compose-specific keybinding (e.g. Action::PluginAction) rather than “intercepting raw keys”.

Partial Implementation

• Wrapping as transform: wrapping happens in renderer, not as a token-inserting transform step. Plugins cannot control wrapping strategy
• Base token stream: renderer can build a base token stream for the viewport (used for plugin view transforms), but the “identity path” does not force tokens through an explicit multi-stage pipeline.

Architecture Gap

The design envisions:

1. Source → base token stream (Text/Newline/Space)
2. Plugin transforms rewrite tokens (Newline → Space for soft breaks)
3. Layout transform inserts break tokens for wrapping
4. Renderer draws final token stream

Current reality (as of current code):

• The renderer fires view_transform_request during render and provides viewport tokens.
• Plugin hooks are fire-and-forget (non-blocking); plugins respond by sending PluginCommand::SubmitViewTransform.
• Plugin commands are drained in Editor::process_async_messages() before a later render, so view transforms are effectively applied on a subsequent frame (and may lag by a frame under load).
• Line wrapping is still a renderer concern; plugins can shape tokens (e.g., inject soft breaks) but don’t own the wrapping algorithm end-to-end.

Next Steps

1. Column guides: render vertical lines at compose_column_guides positions
2. Visual navigation: bind up/down to visual-line movement in Compose mode
3. Markdown plugin: parse incrementally, rewrite paragraph newlines to spaces, emit structure styling, detect hard breaks