[Pmwiki-users] More on attachments

Patrick R. Michaud pmichaud at sci.tamucc.edu
Tue Nov 19 17:38:06 CST 2002


> I don't know if this [use of {{..}}] goes against the pmwiki philosophy, 
> but I think it should be considered.

I'm definitely considering it.  But I don't know that I like introducing 
the double braces--I think the markup just starts to look too ugly with
too many symbols in there, and ugly syntax scares away authors.  Something
about  
   {{color=green class=superlinks [[http://www.pmichaud.com/toast Pop-Tarts]]}}
makes my eyes and skin crawl.

On the other hand, if someone wanted to have an entire paragraph in a
particular font, that would definitely argue in favor of the braces,
since double-brackets probably won't nest.

I'm going to want to think long and hard about this one before committing
to anything.  All suggestions, comments and ideas will be *greatly* 
appreciated.

Here's another idea, borrowing slightly from the Twiki syntax.  We could
use double-% for defining sets of attributes that should be included
in the enclosed text up to the next double-%.  An empty %% or the end of
the line would mark the end of the attribute span.  Examples of the wiki
markup and possible HTML output:

   %color=green% This text is green %%
	<span color=green>This text is green</span>

   %color=green% http://www.w3c.org is green %%
	<span color=green><a href=http://www.w3c.org>http://www.w3c.org</a>
          is green </span>

   %color=green% green %target=% http://www.w3c.org is not green %%
        <span color=green>green</span>
        <a href=http://www.w3c.org target=_blank>http://www.w3c.org</a>
  	  is not green

   %color=green% green %target= color=green% http://www.w3c.org is green %%
	<span color=green>green</span>
	<span color=green><a href=http://www.w3c.org target=_blank>
          http://www.w3c.org</a> is green</span>

   %color=green% [[http://www.w3c.org]] %%
	<span color=green><a href=http://www.w3c.org>[1]</a></span>

   etc.

I kinda like the double-% because it makes it clear what is and is not
considered an attribute.  I kinda dislike the double-% because it's hard
to see what range of text the attribute spans.  I kinda like the
double-% because turning an entire paragraph into a different color
is simply a matter of placing %color=green% at the beginning of the
paragraph.

This all just goes to show how difficult it is to create good markup.  :-)

Pm





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