-----Original Message-----
From: wikitext-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikitext-l-bounces@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 </dt>
<dd>bar</dd>
</dl>
Why is the last whitespace in a <dt> turned into a ? Surely it'd
can't
be for aligning anything?
Jared