Markdown link syntax supported in SharePoint Learning Kit assignment descriptions

Following on from enabling links in an assignment’s description in SLK, we had a request to turn urls to OneNote pages more readable. A typical link to a OneNote page is

https://tenancy.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/WopiFrame.aspx?sourcedoc={e2ea84dc-5bef-4d1d-9788-35f30cc8f4c5}&action=edit&wd=target%28%2F%2FSLK.one%7C17b5d14c-d903-4a96-8137-904b2c1ddb22%2F1.8%7Cd72c4f32-9f99-4a5e-a4f0-286bab08b1e1%2F%29

which is really not very pretty. This links to a page 1.8, in section SLK in the Shared Notebook OneNote on SharePoint 2013.

To resolve this I’ve added support for manually adding a title for the link, to hide the link details from view. To use this I’ve used Markdown syntax which is of the form

[link text](url)

So

[Shared Notebook/SLK/1.8](https://tenancy.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/WopiFrame.aspx?sourcedoc={e2ea84dc-5bef-4d1d-9788-35f30cc8f4c5}&action=edit&wd=target%28%2F%2FSLK.one%7C17b5d14c-d903-4a96-8137-904b2c1ddb22%2F1.8%7Cd72c4f32-9f99-4a5e-a4f0-286bab08b1e1%2F%29)

would be output as

Shared Notebook/SLK/1.8

which is much nicer in a description. The full Markdown link syntax also includes an optional title attribute

[link text[(url “title”)

this is not supported, and neither is any other Markdown syntax.

Standard urls not in Markdown syntax will display at before, so

Update this notebook [Shared Notebook/SLK/1.8](https://tenancy.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/WopiFrame.aspx?sourcedoc={e2ea84dc-5bef-4d1d-9788-35f30cc8f4c5}&action=edit&wd=target%28%2F%2FSLK.one%7C17b5d14c-d903-4a96-8137-904b2c1ddb22%2F1.8%7Cd72c4f32-9f99-4a5e-a4f0-286bab08b1e1%2F%29)

and another link www.salamandersoft.co.uk
www.microsoft.com.

Will display as

Update this notebook Shared Notebook/SLK/1.8
and another link www.salamandersoft.co.uk
www.microsoft.com.