Use the README.md file as main page in Doxygen

In the next release of doxygen (1.8.3) I plan to introduce a new configuration option USE_MDFILE_AS_MAINPAGE which can be used to specify a markdown page that is to be used as the main page. Then you can configure doxygen as follows:

INPUT                  = README.md other_sources
USE_MDFILE_AS_MAINPAGE = README.md

and it will work regardless of page's headings.

Try the following instead to mark the title as a level 1 header:

Main Page {#mainpage}
=========

With doxygen 1.8.2, this makes the page as the index.html page for me.

The doxygen document does state that starting a line with a single # declares a level 1 header, but it seems to be not working for me either.