Markdown: Doing fancy stuff in Discord text

You may have noticed some discord messages have fancy formatting. This is acomplished by using the markdown format. Discord only allows for a specific subset of the format right now.

Basics

Italics - *Italics* or _Italics_
Bold - **Bold**
Strikeout - ~~StrikeOut~~
Underline - __Underline__
||Spoilered Text|| - ||Spoilered Text||

Combos

Bold Italics - ***Bold Italics***
Underline Italics - __*Underline Italics*__
**Underline Bold** - __**Underline Bold**__
**Underline Bold Italics** - __***Underline Bold Italics***__

Strikeout Italics - ~~*Strikeout Italics*~~

Strikeout Bold - ~~**Strikeout Bold**~~

Strikeout Bold Italics - ~~***Strikeout Bold Italics***~~

The below may not be supported on all systems, and are not supported on GitHub, but work on Discord on Windows, at least.

Strikeout Underline - ~~__Strikeout Underline__~~

Strikeout Underline Italics - ~~__*Strikeout Underline Italics*__~~

**Strikeout Underline Bold** - ~~__**Strikeout Underline Bold**__~~

**Strikeout Underline Bold Italics** - ~~__***Strikeout Underline Bold Italics***__~~

Disabling Markdown

Discord also provides a way to prevent markdown from being applied, just add a backslash \ before the markdown character. For example, \*\*Not Bold\*\* will prevent the text from being bold, and the backslash will disapear from the visible text. You can be lazy under some circumstances, and \**only use one backslash**, but this tends to cause issues with unintended formatting, so it’s a good idea to be thorough.

Quotes and Code

If you want to do some quoted text, start a line with a right angular bracket > immediately followed by a space.

Some quoted text - > Some quoted text

If you want to do a multiline block quote, either start every quoted line like that (including empty ones!)…

This is a lengthy quote. It takes up a few lines.

It even has paragraph breaks!

…or start a line with »> three brackets followed by a space (which will quote the rest of the message).

I can't show it here, but
>>> starting from this line,
the entire rest of the message would be formatted as a block quote.

If you want to do preformatted text (such as for code, mathematical expressions, or ascii art), surround it in backticks `.
Preformatted Text - `Preformatted Text`

Preformatted text also ignores most markdown, similar to a backslash. As a matter of fact, even \ backslashes are displayed literally.

If you use markdown outside of preformatted text, though, you can still format the text within. **Preformatted Underline Bold Italics** - __***`Preformatted Underline Bold Italics`***__

If you want to do a block of preformatted text, surround the text in three backticks. ```

This is a haiku 
about a wonderful thing 
called markdown format.

If you want to share longer snippets of code, add code highlighting to your message: do a preformatted block, but add the name of the language after the first three backticks. For example ```java will apply Java syntax highlighting to the code.

    
    /**
     * Safely drops an ItemStack into the world. Used for mob drops.
     *
     * @param world The world to drop the item in.
     * @param pos The base pos to drop the item.
     * @param stack The stack to drop.
     */
    public static void dropStackInWorld (@Nonnull World world, @Nonnull BlockPos pos, @Nonnull ItemStack stack) {
        
        if (!world.isRemote && world.getGameRules().getBoolean("doTileDrops")) {
            
            final float offset = 0.7F;
            final double offX = world.rand.nextFloat() * offset + (1.0F - offset) * 0.5D;
            final double offY = world.rand.nextFloat() * offset + (1.0F - offset) * 0.5D;
            final double offZ = world.rand.nextFloat() * offset + (1.0F - offset) * 0.5D;
            final EntityItem entityitem = new EntityItem(world, pos.getX() + offX, pos.getY() + offY, pos.getZ() + offZ, stack);
            entityitem.setPickupDelay(10);
            world.spawnEntity(entityitem);
        }
    }