rosterchirp-dev/Reference/FUTURE_FEATURES.md

RosterChirp — Future Feature Requests

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Markdown Message Rendering

Request: Render markdown-formatted text in the message window.

Scope recommendation: Start with inline-only markdown (bold, italic, inline code, strikethrough, links). Full block-level markdown (headers, lists, tables, code blocks) is a follow-on.

Why inline-only first

• Zero risk of misformatting existing plain-text messages
• Full markdown risks rendering existing content oddly (e.g. a message starting with 1. or # rendering as a list/header)

Implementation notes

• Integration point is formatMsgContent() in Message.jsx — already returns HTML for dangerouslySetInnerHTML; a markdown parser slots straight in
• Add marked npm package (~13KB) for parsing
• Add DOMPurify for XSS sanitization — required, markdown allows raw HTML passthrough and content comes from other users
• marked config: { breaks: true } to preserve single-newline-as-<br> behaviour, { mangle: false, headerIds: false } to suppress heading anchors
• Apply markdown parse first, then @mention substitution (so **@[Name]** renders correctly)
• Remove the existing URL regex linkifier in formatMsgContent — markdown handles links natively
• Strip markdown from reply previews (currently shows raw **text**)
• handleCopy copies msg.content (raw markdown source) — correct behaviour, no change needed
• Emoji-only detection runs on raw content before rendering — no change needed
• Compose box stays plain textarea for v1; no preview toolbar required

Effort estimate

Scope	Estimate
Inline-only (bold, italic, code, strikethrough)	~1.5 hours
Full markdown (+ block elements, CSS for bubbles)	~4–5 hours