[Wikitext-l] Is wikitext an HTML shorthand language, or a real markup language?

[Jared Williams]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikitext-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org 
> [mailto:wikitext-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of 
> Steve Bennett
> Sent: 10 December 2007 01:33
> To: Wikitext-l
> Subject: [Wikitext-l] Is wikitext an HTML shorthand 
> language,or a real markup language?
> 
> I gather that when wikis were first invented, it was more or 
> less assumed that everyone knew some HTML and the wikitext 
> syntax language was simply a shorthand. However, is this 
> still the case, or should it be considered a markup language 
> in its own right?
> 
> Here's a simple example to demonstrate the difference:
> 
> ----
> :one
> :two
> 
> :three
> 
> 
> :four
> ----
> 
> If you consider wikitext to be a markup/formatting/display 
> language, then you would expect there to be little or no gap 
> between "one" and "two", a much bigger gap between "two and 
> "three", and twice as big again between "three" and "four".
> 
> That's not what happens. Instead, it's converted to this:
> 
> <dl>
> <dd>one</dd>
> <dd>two</dd>
> </dl>
> <dl>
> <dd>three</dd>
> </dl>
> <p><br /></p>
> <dl>
> <dd>four</dd>
> </dl>
> 
> The significant thing is that the only difference between 
> one/two and two/three is that the latter is two separate 
> "definition lists" rather than two list items in the same 
> list. The visual difference is minute.
> 

I'm not sure I'm understanding the problem,  IE7, Mozilla2.0.0.11 and Opera
9.5 all render the html much as you describe in the paragraph after the
wikimarkup.

> So, to properly use the : operator, you need to know how the 
> : is converted into HTML, then how that HTML will render in 
> most browsers.
> 
> Is this really what we want? Don't we generally want the 
> wikitext to render the way the user expects it to, rather 
> than how HTML dictates it should render? Should we consider 
> going as far as to convert the above into <span> tags with 
> styles to indent a certain distance from the left, rather 
> than abusing the <dl> tag this way?
> 
> Opinions and comments please!

Yeah, I think some of the use of indenting is a bit nutty.
For instance

::::{|
| cell
|}

<dl><dd><dl><dd><dl><dd><dl><dd>
<table><tr><td>cell</td></tr></table>
</dd></dl></dd></dl></dd></dl></dd></dl>

Would be far better to use CSS margin-left & -right to indent, imo.



Another abuse that I think is far worse than this one is.. 

;foo           :bar

Is turned into something along the lines of...

<dl>
<dt>foo        &nbsp;</dt>
<dd>bar</dd>
</dl>

Why is the last whitespace in a <dt> turned into a &nbsp;? Surely it'd can't
be for aligning anything?

Jared