[pmwiki-users] TextFormattingRules and BasicEditing

[John Rankin]

On Friday, 3 March 2006 6:38 PM, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
>On Fri, Mar 03, 2006 at 11:24:30AM +1300, John Rankin wrote:
>> 
>> EditGettingStarted -- a *short* page for people new to wiki 
>> editing that shows how with a few simple markups you can do 
>> some pretty neat stuff; designed to recognise the "wysiwyg 
>> is easy and markup is too hard" perception
>> 
>>   This may be a hard page to write, as it's much easier to
>>   write a long page than a short one.
>
>The hardest part is deciding what to include or exclude.
>BasicEditing was intended to be short, but it doesn't work
>out that way.

I think to get started, one wants to learn about 3 areas:

- paragraph markup (eg lists and headings)

  I kinda prefer 'paragraph' to 'block'

- character markup (eg emphasis and strong)

  I kinda prefer 'character' to 'inline'

- links (groups, pages and external links)

Each topic would also have a link to a fuller page.

Then I think one wants to know that other things are possible:
tables, images, categories, page lists and trails.

Finally, I'd link to the MarkupMasterIndex, only I think
I'd rename it to MarkupVocabulary or something similar
(TopicMap, MarkupGuide, ...)
>
>> EditingWithMarkup -- a long page that lists all markups with 
>> examples for each, including a (:toc:), to act as a markup
>> rule reference
>
>Wow, that would be a very long page indeed.  Even the
>MarkupMasterIndex is already fairly long, and all it does
>is list the available markups.  :-)

Then perhaps every heading on MarkupVocabulary (aka
MarkupMasterIndex) ought to be a link -- this would have
the effect of deconstructing TextFormattingRules and the
current BasicEditing into smaller chunks.
>
>> MarkupQuickReference -- show/hideable on the edit screen
>> StyleQuickReference -- show/hideable on the edit screen
>> TableQuickReference -- show/hideable on the edit screen
>
>I like this idea very much.  I like it so much that I'm likely
>to add the show/hide capability into the core.  (I was leaning
>in that direction already -- it just seems too useful to
>ignore.)

Perhaps also a DirectiveQuickReference.
>
>> I don't particularly like the names SimpleTables and
>> AdvancedTables. I'd be inclined to change SimpleTables
>> to Tables.
>
>This is a very good idea.  I'm also not all that fond of
>"AdvancedTables".  Perhaps we just need Tables and MoreTables
>(or DirectiveTables or MacroTables or ...).

TablesWithStructure, StructuredTables, TableDirectives, 
BlockTables, 
>
>> Just my 5 cents.
>
>Your 5 cents appears to be worth more than its face value.  :-)
>
>Pm
>


-- 
JR
--
John Rankin