CDS.Markdown.Lite 1.5.5

CDS.Markdown Solution

CDS.Markdown is a comprehensive .NET library for both rendering and generating Markdown. It is designed for easy integration into your .NET 8 and .NET 10 applications.

Two packages

CDS.Markdown depends on CDS.Markdown.Lite, so installing CDS.Markdown still gets you MarkdownTextBox and the generation APIs too — nothing is lost by installing the bigger package. Install CDS.Markdown.Lite on its own only when you specifically want to avoid the WebView2 dependency.

Features

• 🖥️ WinForms Viewer Control (CDS.Markdown): A drop-in MarkdownViewer control powered by WebView2 and Markdig. Includes Light and Dark mode theme support.
• ⚡ Lightweight Text Box Control (CDS.Markdown.Lite): MarkdownTextBox, a RichTextBox-based control for prose-sized Markdown (headings, formatting, lists, tables) with no WebView2 process and a synchronous preferred-height read — a cheaper option when you're rendering many small fragments (e.g. chat bubbles) rather than a full document.
• 📝 Programmatic Creation (CDS.Markdown.Lite): Generate Markdown dynamically using a clean Fluent API or a traditional Builder API.
• 🔌 Offline-First: Embedded resources for GitHub-style CSS, Mermaid.js diagrams, and MathJax (LaTeX math) mean no internet connection is required to render advanced Markdown.
• 🧪 Fully Tested: Comprehensive unit test coverage ensuring reliable HTML generation and Markdown building.

Quick Start

1. Installation

Install whichever package matches what you need (see the table above):

dotnet add package CDS.Markdown.Lite
# or, for the full WebView2 viewer too:
dotnet add package CDS.Markdown

2. Viewing Markdown (WinForms)

Drop the MarkdownViewer control onto your form and load a file:

await markdownViewer1.LoadMarkdownAsync("readme.md");

👉 Read the full Viewer Documentation

Or, for many small fragments rather than a full document, drop a MarkdownTextBox control onto your form instead — this one only needs CDS.Markdown.Lite:

markdownTextBox1.SetMarkdown("**Hello**, world!");

See the "Embedding as a Fragment" section of the Viewer Documentation for the tradeoff between the two controls.

3. Generating Markdown (Fluent API)

Create structured Markdown programmatically without string wrangling:

var markdown = new FluentMarkdownDocument()
    .AddHeading("Hello, World!")
    .AddParagraph("This is a **bold** statement.")
    .AddBulletList(["First item", "Second item"])
    .AddMermaidDiagram("graph TD;\nA-->B;")
    .ToMarkdown();

👉 Read the full Creation Documentation

Project Structure

• CDS.Markdown.Lite: The lightweight library — MarkdownTextBox and the Markdown generation APIs. Depends on Markdig only.
• CDS.Markdown: The WebView2-based viewer control and its HTML-building pipeline. Depends on CDS.Markdown.Lite.
• Demo: A sample WinForms application demonstrating the viewer, the text box, and the creation APIs.
• UnitTests: MSTest project covering both packages — HTML rendering, session management, MarkdownTextBox rendering, and Markdown generation.
• UiTests: FlaUI project that drives the real Demo.exe end-to-end.

Documentation

• Markdown Viewer Guide
• Markdown Creation Guide
• Demo Wiki

Attributions

• github-markdown-css (MIT License)
• Markdig (BSD-2-Clause)
• Mermaid.js (MIT License)
• MathJax (Apache-2.0)