The second major version of the Markdown Easy Drupal contrib module was released on August 17, 2025 and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. The release has some new features, a simplified configuration, and a single minor bug fix.
The original goal of the Markdown Easy module was to provide an easy-to-use, easy-to-maintain, and secure-by-default Markdown processor that is easily added to Drupal sites as a standard text filter. Version 1.0.0 of the module was released on September 2, 2023 and since then the module has had a single maintenance release and small, but loyal group of users.
Major-est feature
Version 2.0.0 of the module was initially driven by one major feature - the addition of a new Markdown flavor - this is our way of saying a preconfigured set of Markdown processor features. Version 1.0.0 shipped with Standard Markdown and GitHub-flavored Markdown. Version 2.0.0 introduces a new flavor: Markdown Smörgåsbord.
Markdown Smörgåsbord includes everything available in GitHub-flavored Markdown as well as support for Markdown syntax for footnotes and description lists.
In case you're wondering, GitHub-flavored Markdown includes everything in Standard Markdown plus support for Markdown syntax for autolinks, disallowed raw HTML, strikethrough, tables, and task lists.
Major-y features
Power users
We also added a new power-user feature that removes some of the guardrails to the module's secure-by-default configuration. If you want to use Markdown Easy without any of its validation checks or HTML stripping, you can now easily turn both of these security features off with a simple configuration change. This feature is fully documented.
Tables
The new version also greatly improves the module's support for creating tables in Markdown syntax, including support for Markdown defined table alignment.
Configuration feedback
Version 2.0.0 of the module adds much better support for site-builders when configuring the Markdown Easy text filter. Upon the saving of the text format configuration, the module now compares the text format's Limit allowed HTML configuration with the HTML tags output by the selected Markdown Easy flavor, and informs the site-builder if any are missing.
Updated documentation as a rule
In an effort to provide existing and new users of the module with the proper documentation, the 2.0.0 version was not tagged until its documentation updates were complete.
These documentation updates were especially important for existing users, as we introduced a breaking change, but necessary change in one of our hook implementations. This change is documented in the release notes and the advanced section of the documentation.
Well tested as another rule
One of my initial goals for this module was to have full test coverage. This was achieved for version 1.0.0 of the module and continues with version 2.0.0. All bugs and new features required test coverage prior to merging. In fact, almost 70% of Version 2.0.0's PHP code is test code!
Team effort
The second major release of Markdown Easy wouldn't have been possible without the help of James Shields (lostcarpark on d.o.) and a number of other contributors (aasarava, bramdriesen, dries, deepali sardana, nexusnovaz, roromedia, and warped). I'm a bit spoiled to have James willing to provide feedback and/or contribute/review code on just about every issue in the queue. Open-source work can't be done in a vacuum and having someone look at work with a critical eye (and great communication skills) is a luxury.
What's next?
Good question - there's currently a couple of interesting feature requests in the issue queue, but I'm going to strive to keep the original mission of the module at the forefront: easy-to-use, easy-to-maintain, and secure-by-default.
AI was used in this article only to calculate the percentage of test code in the Markdown Easy module.
Add new comment