[Pmwiki-users] Feature Suggestion

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Fri, 7 Mar 2003, Jonathan Scott Duff wrote:

> > I think this can probably be handled 
> > as a local customization w/o modifying pmwiki.php, although it
> > may require some tricky handling of the $LinkPatterns array to make
> > sure the patterns stay in the correct sequence.
> 
> Why not modify pmwiki.php and keep intermap.txt in the same format?

Oh, it's not the formatting of intermap.txt that makes a difference--
it's just the handling of the sequence in which link patterns are
analyzed.  InterMap links have to be handled prior to URLs, which have to
be handled prior to FreeLinks, which have to be handled prior to WikiWords.

> > But I'm *very* worried that this "macro" capability will be just the 
> > beginning of a very slippery slope that will ultimately lead to the 
> > exclusion of naive authors--i.e., in addition to learning the 
> > TextFormattingRules, they'd also have to be aware of all of the 
> > author-defined custom markups that were generated.
> 
> Hmm. Are you worried that they'll see the funny markup and wonder
> "what's this?" Are you worried that they won't be able to find an
> answer? What do you mean by "they'd have to be aware of all
> shortcuts"?

Yeah, I'm worried that they'll see funny "undocumented" markup.  I don't
mind markup sequences created by WikiAdministrators, because the admin 
can decide the importance of documenting the additional markup and 
how it might affect acceptance by different classes of authors.  But
allowing authors to self-create new markup sequences via the wiki takes
some of that decision and control away from the WikiAdministrator, and
authors (especially sophisticated authors) are much less likely to
consider the consequences of difficult markup sequences on other 
authors' ability to participate/edit.

Pm