[pmwiki-users] how to use HTML5

a.sonderhoff at gassi-tv.de a.sonderhoff at gassi-tv.de
Tue Jul 3 06:47:16 CDT 2012


> However, all wikis including PmWiki, are somewhat more presentational than
> the spirit of HTML specs call for.  A wiki is a compromise.  It is a quick
> and easy way for naïve users to write sort-of HTML without having to learn
> HTML.
> […]
> I think you need to ask why you want HTML 5. If you are not thinking of
> naïve users creating and editing pages, perhaps you should be thinking of
> writing documents in HTML 5 directly.

As discussed earlier in this mailing list, PmWiki is not just targetting the average wiki use, but is also considered to be a full-fledged CMS. As such Paul’s question is totally legit and the use of HTML5 especially considering, that its support will be essential soon, makes sense to me. I also don’t think, that user experience will be complicated by the introduction of HTML5/YAML4 to PmWiki. In the end the introduction of additional markup is just another possibility for advanced users to declare structure within the content. If PmWiki would only target naïve users, there would not be (:table :), (:if :) and other directives.

However, I agree with Lars, that implementing certain structural markup will be more than just a little tweak. That said, I never experienced any problems generating HTML5 code with PmWiki, that do not use the new structural tags (or YAML4 for that matter), by simply creating an HTML5 template.

Take care
Josh

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On Jul/01, 2012, at 1850 , Lars Eighner wrote:

> On Sun, 1 Jul 2012, Paul Wiegmans wrote:
> 
>> Hello there,
>> 
>> Thank you very much to all you guys making PMwiki the wonderfull wiki system that it is now!
>> 
>> I am reading a book on HTML5 and I am interested in creating a new skin , based on YAML 4 (See http://yaml.de) . As part of that, I would like to use HTML5 in the new skin. New tags likes <header>, <footer>, <nav> and so on is not difficult and can be easily embedded in the skin template,
> 
> So far so good. Like all wikis I have seen, PmWiki the wiki parts (stuff
> users can edit) translate wiki-ese into some essential HTML elements which
> are generally supported by HTMLs new and old.  There are some very minor
> adjustments in the markup for things such as whether empty elements like BR
> or IMG are explicitily close (whether it is > or  /> ), but otherwise you
> can pretty much determine what the kind of HTML of your documents in the
> template.
> 
> However, all wikis including PmWiki, are somewhat more presentational than
> the spirit of HTML specs call for.  A wiki is a compromise.  It is a quick
> and easy way for naïve users to write sort-of HTML without having to learn
> HTML.  For a wiki to capture the full range and nuance of HTML, wiki markup
> would have to be about as complex and difficult as HTML itself, and that
> would defeat the purpose.  (Besides opening the security holes of allow
> anonymous users to do things accidentally or on purpose that it is not wise
> to trust them to do.)
> 
>> but is there any way to get PMwiki to use the <article> and <section> tags
>> in generating page content instead of <p> ?  How would I do that?
> 
> In HTML 5, ARTICLE and SECTION are not intended to replace P.  While it
> would be a minor matter to add markup that would generate ARTICLE and
> SECTION tags, they are fairly useless without elements such as HGROUP,
> HEADER, FOOTER, and so forth.
> 
> So the answer is no.  It would not be a simple matter to make PmWiki (or any
> wiki at this stage) use these tags in an intelligent way.  Moreover, as
> mentioned above, the point of a wiki is to make markup simple which
> necessarily means the HTML a wiki produces cannot be pristine "best
> practices" HTML.  For example, the present PmWiki/DocumentationIndex
> contains such things as empty paragraphs ( <hr /><p> </p> ).  This is
> horrible (x)html, but it is the price of simplicity.
> 
> I think you need to ask why you want HTML 5. If you are not thinking of
> naïve users creating and editing pages, perhaps you should be thinking of
> writing documents in HTML 5 directly.
> 
> -- 
> Lars Eighner
> http://www.larseighner.com/index.html
> 8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266_______________________________________________
> pmwiki-users mailing list
> pmwiki-users at pmichaud.com
> http://www.pmichaud.com/mailman/listinfo/pmwiki-users




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