[Pmwiki-users] Suggestions for [[<<]] replacement.

Christian Ridderström chr
Sun Jan 4 20:30:52 CST 2004


On Sun, 4 Jan 2004, John Feezell wrote:

> Some thoughts on a replacement for [[<<]].
> My suggestion:
> 
>    :NL  for a new line to be replaced with <br />
>    :NP  for a new paragraph to be replace with <p /> or <br /><br />
>
> My criteria:
> 1.  use minimum number of key strokes
> 2.  be distinct and unlikely to be found in regular text files
> 3.  be a ready reminder of what is being done
> 4.  require a minimum amount of change to existing PmWiki code
> 5.  be easily recognized as "markup"
> 6.  use customary writing symbols

Good idea to state your critera... I'm not sure I agree about the
ordering though. Below are some thoughts/reflexions/questions about
the criteria:

Re. 1: I'd say 'small' rather than 'minimal' (sorry if I'm picky here), 
Re. 2: Isn't this two criteria, or do I miss something? I.e.:
       a) easy to recognize as markup and not normal text
       b) the markup should usually not occur in normal text
Re. 3: I.e. easy to understand what the markup does
Re. 4: Do you mean changes in pmwiki.php etc, or in actual pages?
Re. 5: Good point... 
Re. 6: I.e. use characters found on all kinds of keyboards?

I would also like to add the criteria that the markup in general doesn't 
"surprise" you. For instance, what should this produce:

	:Definition:NP-problems such as traveling salesman

Here, the result will depend on the 'priority' of the different
'operators', but there is no obvious priority ...

We shouldn't forget that one or more empty lines is also used as "markup"
for a new paragraph (I'll comment more on that in a separate post) and we
should consider this when we choose the markup... i.e. the purpose of the
markup we discuss here is to be placed together with other text, right?

It's probably a good idea to look at how [[<<]] is used today. I did a
simple check on how often it is used in 'my' site:

	wiki.d$ ls -1 | wc --lines
            393
	wiki.d$ grep -l '\[\[<<]]' * | wc --lines
	    98
where it's used in roughly 25% of the pages. However, the files aren't in
raw form... is there a way I could 'unscramble' them?

Oh... about the functionality... is :NL what [[<<]] does today, and :NP
something new, i.e. what is the purpose of the markup?
Do we mean exactly what you wrote in the beginning, i.e. 
    :NL  -> <br />
    :NP  -> <p /> or <br /><br />
and if so... what does this mean (I'm not sure about the details
here.. today we have [[<<]] -> <br clear='all'> for instance).

> The colon (:) according to WebWord Pro represents the following:
>    A punctuation mark (:) used after a word introducing a series or an 
> example or an explanation (or after the salutation of a business letter)
> 
> This seems to fit with what is happening with a new line or new paragraph 
> markup. And with my limited testing meets all of my criteria above.  It 
> also reminds me of other coding such as \n or back with DOS LF,CR etc.

Umm.. I don't understand what you mean here, and in addition, I'm not sure
how many "normal" users of PmWik would be clear on what a colon represents...

Speaking of the normal users... is PmWiki primarily intendend for
e.g. American English? E.g. the use of a colon might differ (I've no idea)
in German or French etc. If so, I don't know how much we can rely on
'details' of how a language works?

regards
Christian

-- 
Dr. Christian Ridderstr?m, +46-8-768 39 44       http://www.md.kth.se/~chr




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