[pmwiki-users] Re-thinking Intro to markup pages

[john.rankin at affinity.co.nz]

> John Rankin wrote:
>> If people support this proposal, I will make a page for comment.
>> However, I will not do anything while a number of people are expressing
>> a strong preference for using directives on EditingForNewcomers.
>>
> I tend towards thinking that we should use (:markup:) on the Newcomers
> page. I recall not even thinking of editing a page to look at markup,
> and even after I did, it took me a while before I was comfortable enough
> to 'read' through wiki markup and locate specific sections quickly.
>
This is one of the reasons I structured the page in the way that I did.
By keeping it simple and using only markup described on the page,
I tried (perhaps unsuccessfully) to make it as easy as possible for
a newcomer to relate the source view with the browse view.

If, for example, we were to add a link to say "View the wiki source for
this page" (as I think we should), the newcomer would get no surprises.

Continuing the "no surprises" theme, if EditingForNewcomers uses
markup that  is not defined on the page, the page text needs to
acknowledge the fact and link to a page (DirectivesForNewcomers)
that explains the undefined markup. This is why the current
EditingForNewcomers page explicitly states that it is built using
only the markup described on the page.

JR