Marklane – Publish Markdown without the post editor.

FAQ

What can I set with frontmatter?

You can set values such as:

• title
• slug
• postType
• excerpt
• status
• date
• category
• tags
• featuredImage
• lang

• translations

  postType defaults to post. Public registered post types are allowed by default, except attachments. Site-specific overrides can be applied with the marklane_whitelist filter.
  If title is omitted, Marklane uses the first H1 and then the filename. If slug is omitted, Marklane derives it from the filename.

Can it update an existing post?

Yes.

The plugin matches an existing post by slug + post_type, or by slug + post_type + lang when Polylang is in use.

What does Dry Run show?

Dry Run shows the planned action before saving anything, including:

• whether the import will create a new post or update an existing one
• which existing post was matched
• taxonomy assignment results
• relative image and featuredImage resolution
• warnings and errors raised during the import

How are images resolved?

Relative image paths are resolved against Media Library images in the same directory as the selected Markdown attachment.
When Markdown and supporting images are uploaded together, the supporting images are stored as flat Media Library files, so nested folder paths are not preserved.

The featuredImage frontmatter field follows the same rule and sets the post thumbnail when the target image is already registered in the Media Library. If FIFU is active, featuredImage can also point to an external URL.

For more predictable results, use fully unique filenames and, if possible, disable WordPress’s year/month based upload folders before uploading the Markdown file and related images.

Can I enable Japanese strong-emphasis compatibility behavior?

Yes. Marklane keeps league/commonmark as the Markdown converter and uses strict CommonMark behavior by default. If your Japanese writing workflow needs text such as **「text」**続き to render as strong text, enable the CJK compatibility pass:

add_filter('marklane_enable_markdown_compatibility_preprocessing', '__return_true');

Advanced sites can replace the matching pattern with the marklane_markdown_compatibility_strong_boundary_pattern filter. For example, use a custom pattern for Japanese quoted text followed by a letter or number.

Can it render Mermaid diagrams?

Yes, optionally.

Enable Mermaid rendering from Tools > Marklane, and Marklane will load the diagram renderer only on front-end pages that contain language-mermaid code blocks. The post content is still stored as a normal fenced code block, so disabling the option simply returns the front end to plain code blocks. Advanced sites can replace the script URL with the marklane_mermaid_script_src filter.

Can it render GitHub alerts or Zenn-style callouts?

Yes, optionally.

Enable Extended Markdown from Tools > Marklane, and Marklane will render common callout syntax such as GitHub / Obsidian / GitLab blockquote alerts. Zenn / Docusaurus / Quarto ::: callouts are normalized during import, then enhanced on the front end. :::details is rendered as a native collapsible details element without JavaScript. External embed syntax such as tweets, cards, or videos is not expanded. Advanced sites can limit enabled normalization profiles with the marklane_extended_markdown_profiles filter.

Can it render math formulas?

Yes, optionally. Enable Math rendering from Tools > Marklane, and Marklane will render display formulas written as $$...$$ only on front-end pages that contain math blocks. Inline math is not expanded. Under the hood, Marklane converts formulas to browser-native MathML with a bundled local renderer.

Can my theme override these styles?

Yes. Extended Markdown callouts, Mermaid rendering, and Math rendering use ordinary HTML and CSS classes, so themes can override them with their own CSS. Marklane outputs classes such as marklane-callout, marklane-rendered-block, marklane-mermaid, marklane-math, and marklane-math-display. Each callout type exposes one color variable, such as --marklane-callout-color-note or --marklane-callout-color-warning; Marklane derives its background and border colors with color-mix().

Does it work with Polylang?

Yes.

When Polylang is active, you can use lang and translations in frontmatter to connect translated posts.