[Pmwiki-users] discussion on line breaks

[John Feezell]

Well I was dealing with this today in some work so I was glad to receive 
your note.  After reviewing your suggestions, I would favor the use of [/ 
... /] with block-level formating.  It parallels the concept of <Pre> 
</Pre> in html that is straight forward.  Of course, the html version 
renders the text in mono font which would be undesirable here. It is also 
eazy to read and quick to enter - two lower case strokes - and leaves a 
clear markup in the editing.

Would it be possible to use the terminating markup /] as a replacement for 
[[<<]] so that
one [[<<]] two, and one /] two would each render as
one
two

and have
[/one
two

three
four/] render as

one
two

three
four(with a LF here)

Also,  what about the possibility of something like:
#[/
|| item_one||item_two||item_three ||
||item_four|| item_five || item_six||
    The above table represents ....
    and the ... for years ... and ...
    using a base of .../]

that would render as 1.  item_one item_two   item_three
   item_four item_five    item_six
   The above table represents ....
   and the ... for years ... and ...
   using a base of .../]

/JF

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 12:40:59 -0600, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> 
wrote:

> Several people have remarked on this listserv and in other communications
> about the meaning of line breaks in markup text, as well as the ugly
> [[<<]] markup for adding line breaks in the output.
>
> I have a few ideas on this topic that I want to present to the group for 
> discussion.  Note that at the moment I'm doing this only for 
> brainstorming/discussion purposes--I'm not necessarily intending to 
> change anything along these lines.  I just want to solicit opinions
> from the group and gauge interest.
>
> Currently, PmWiki combines consecutive lines of text that don't have
> leading markup into a single paragraph.  Thus, if someone enters markup
> text as
>
> Knowing others is intelligence;
> knowing yourself is true wisdom.
> Mastering others is strength;
> mastering yourself is true power.
>
> then PmWiki currently renders this as
>
> Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true
> wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself
> is true power.
>
> The reason that PmWiki works this way is largely historical--I was
> trying to keep PmWiki similar to other wiki engines and this is how
> they worked.  But over time I've been refining the principle that
> the output text ought to look something like the markup source, and
> clearly that is not what happens here.  In PmWiki's current 
> implementation,
> if someone wants the phrases above to appear on separate lines they must 
> enter something like
> Knowing others is intelligence;
> [[<<]]knowing yourself is true wisdom.
> [[<<]]Mastering others is strength;
> [[<<]]mastering yourself is true power.
>
> which I think everyone agrees looks pretty awful.
>
> So, one idea that I've been playing with is the notion that newlines 
> occurring between two text lines could be treated as line breaks in the 
> output.  Blank lines would still be used to create paragraph breaks, as
> before, newlines would still mark the end of list items, and newlines
> could be still escaped using \ at the end of a line.  Thus markup of
>
> one
> two
>
> three
> four
>
> would display that way on output.
>
> Another idea is to introduce a new markup, say [/.../], that has the
> sole purpose of grouping multiple lines together into a single line
> for block-level formatting purposes but continuing to honor embedded
> markup.  For example, the markup text
>
> # This is item 1
> # [/This is item #2 with
> item text that
> contain line breaks, italics, bold, links,
>
> and paragraph breaks and still be within the same item./]
> # This is item 3
>
> could then render as
>
> 1. This is item 1
> 2. This is item #2 with
> item text that
> contain line breaks, italics, bold, links,
>
> and paragraph breaks and still be within the same item.
> 3. This is item 3
>
> Or, we could take a completely opposite approach, and use a markup such
> as [/.../] to mean ignore intervening newlines entirely, as in
>
> one
> two
>
> three
>
> [/four
> five
>
> six/]
>
> which would render as
>
> one
> two
>
> three
>
> four five six
>
>
> Or, we could look at other combinations.
>
> I'm very interested to hear opinions on:
> - does any of this make sense?
> - would it pose any real problems for existing installations?
> - is it too radical a change?
> - are there other considerations I haven't thought about?
>
> This is just an exploratory discussion for the moment, but it could 
> rapidly
> lead to an implementation if I hear good consensus or strong demand for
> something like this.  And I'm not really wanting to aim towards even more
> drastic changes in the overall markup strategy--this one just seems like
> it might be worthwhile.
>
> Comments and discussion can be made to the listserv, or sent to me via
> private email.  Thanks in advance!
>
> Pm
>
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>
>



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