Checkboxes not rendering, and can't be modified in config

[johnend]

Not sure if this is due to how I've set the plugin up, or something to do with the plugin itself, but the checkboxes aren't rendering in normal mode, and I can't overwrite them.

I have tried multiple options:

-- referencing global table
markdown.setup {
    checked = icons.ui.BoxChecked,
}

-- pasting character from Nerd Fonts cheatsheet
markdown.setup {
    checked = "󰄱",
}

markdown. because I'm using a pcall.

Also not sure if this only applies to the checkboxes or other things too. But based on the default config, and the one in the code, one of the above should work?

[MeanderingProgrammer]

Your config is slightly incorrect. The symbols for checkboxes are nested under the checkbox property.

So to set them do:

markdown.setup({
  checkbox = {
    checked = icons.ui.BoxChecked,
    unchecked = 'other_value',
  },
})

I'm not sure how to go about debugging them not being rendered in general. Is the plugin able to render anything? Do headings / lists work?

[johnend]

So most things work just fine, but the checkboxes, quotes and code blocks aren't showing as they do in the example in the README.

Maybe something to do with my config?

return {
  "MeanderingProgrammer/markdown.nvim",
  name = "render-markdown",
  ft = { "markdown" },
  dependencies = {
    "nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter",
  },
  config = function()
    local status_ok, markdown = pcall(require, "render-markdown")
    if not status_ok then
      print("Error loading plugin: render-markdown", markdown)
      return
    end

    markdown.setup {
      start_enabled = true,
      checkbox = {
        checked = icons.ui.BoxChecked,
      }
    }

    vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd("BufWinLeave", {
      pattern = "*.md",
      callback = function()
        vim.opt.colorcolumn = "120"
        vim.opt.textwidth = 120
      end,
    })

    vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd("BufWinEnter", {
      pattern = "*.md",
      callback = function()
        vim.opt.colorcolumn = "80"
        vim.opt.textwidth = 80
      end,
    })
  end,
}

[MeanderingProgrammer]

Where is the checkbox in the screenshot?

Is it the first line under the heading, can you show me the raw markdown?

I'm not sure what icons.ui.BoxChecked is meant to be, but if it's an x icon then everything seems to be working.

[johnend]

Yeah, the checkbox is on line 22. The icons.ui.BoxChecked is a reference to a Lua table that stores some Nerd Font icons in it (not an X). So not sure what is going on to be honest. Looks to me like there are some other things that aren't working from the screenshot (compared to what is in the repos examples too) like the code block and the quotes.

If I only have:

  markdown.setup {
      start_enabled = true,
    }

In my config the output looks the same, nothing actually changes when I change any of the values at all. Though I haven't tested the ones that are working as expected.

[MeanderingProgrammer]

Can you try a simplified configuration , just to rule out any gotchas there. Something like:

return {
  "MeanderingProgrammer/markdown.nvim",
  name = "render-markdown",
  dependencies = { "nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter" },
  config = function()
    require("render-markdown").setup({})
  end,
}

If the problem still persists after that can you run the checkhealth command: checkhealth render-markdown, see if that turns up any issues. You'll probably have some LaTeX related warnings, but those shouldn't impact any of this functionality.

After that I can work with you to generate some debug logs that can hopefully shed light on what's going on, but that's a little more involved.

[johnend]

Using the above and running checkhealth render-markdown I get the following output:

And still see a blue X in place of a checkbox icon, it does't actually render anything for the empty checkbox at all. 🤔

[MeanderingProgrammer]

That all looks good, damn. Lets see if the logs can help.

Can you enable debug logs by updating the plugin config to:

require('render-markdown').setup({
  log_level = 'debug',
})

Then create a new markdown file with the following content, just so I can compare my output to yours:

# Heading

- Item
  - Nested

> [!NOTE]
> A note

- [ ] Unchecked
- [x] Checked

Open the file, the plugin will try to render it, then close the file.

Then copy the output of the log file which will most likely be located at ~/.local/state/nvim/render-markdown.log, and paste the results here.

[johnend]

Weirdly, I removed the basic config, and uncommented my old one, and now it's working?

[johnend]

I actually have no idea why, but I have a suspicion that it might actually have been something to do with my terminal, rather than the plugin. I am using Kitty as had the Nerd Font symbols mapped to a symbol override, which was messing with a few things, and I believe it wasn't mapping everything correctly. Remove the symbols override and started using Monaspace from GitHub without the override, so maybe that was it? 🤦

However, it does look as though if you write: - [ ] without any content after it won't render the empty box or the filled one so perhaps it was something to do with that?

Sorry for wasting your time, and thanks for helping 😄

[MeanderingProgrammer]

No worries, always good to be aware of more possible issues! Will make a note to ask for terminal emulator in the future.

Problems with symbol mappings in Kitty / just maintaining them correctly was what got me to switch to Wezterm.

The - [ ] not rendering isn't an issue as much as it is how markdown behaves. If you don't include any text after the square brackets treesitter (at least for the current parser implementation) interprets it as an empty link rather than a checkbox, and since links are concealed an empty link will disappear. The - before the square brackets should still render a bullet point since it now gets interpreted as the start of a list.

So what I would expect you to see and what I see locally is - [ ] gets rendered as a bullet point followed by no text.

[johnend]

Actually just setting up WezTerm today! 😂

Pretty good that it comes with a Nerd Font built in too so you don't have to think about it at all.

All the config is working as expected now. Thanks again for all the help 😁