Complete the offline renderer

The --render-offline didn’t make the 2.0 release, because it doesn’t render the same content as GitHub.

The functionality is there. The CLI option is added back again in the fix-render-offline branch, where work can continue.

[joeyespo]

@mileserickson I understand your frustration.

The reason it works this way is that from the beginning, correctness of rendering was chosen over offline availability. It’s absolutely a limitation, but with the recent test improvements in #148 and 2c37cc455ad34a0b4a05482d31f7f7877ee58c59, it’ll be easier to make sure correctness is preserved in an offline renderer.

I’m confused as to why I would use Grip at all, if it’s no more efficient than viewing the Markdown document in the original repo.

Grip solves the problem of viewing Markdown before committing to the repo. Offline mode solves the additional problem of viewing without an internet connection. (That’s still necessary for viewing the Markdown document in the original repo, btw).

I’m planning on addressing this at some point, unless someone else jumps in. However, I have fewer large windows of time for big changes these days. Being aware of that actually influenced the original decision. (Nobody likes waiting for a busy maintainer to change and deploy code every time GitHub tweaks or updates their styles.)

In the meantime, could you try the workaround? That’ll prevent others on your network from using up your own rate limit. Here’s how:

1. Generate a Personal Access Token

   

2. Copy the token

   

3. Create a ~/.grip/settings.py file:

   $ cd ~
   $ mkdir .grip
   $ cd .grip
   $ touch settings.py
   

4. Add the token to your new settings.py file:

   PASSWORD = 'YOUR-ACCESS-TOKEN'
   

Eventually this auth experience will be also improved (see #82).

Thanks for trying out Grip and for being patient. Let me know if I can help in any other way.

[rsyring]

FWIW, I wonder if the initial offline renderer could be documented as not-exact. That is, for the sake of getting offline rendering off the ground, just state that the offline renderer won’t be perfect. My guess is that many of the people needing that support don’t care that it isn’t exact, they will be happy to just have offline rendering that is close.

Then, over time, the offline renderer could be brought up to par.