-----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.
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!
Just browing bugzilla and seems it is classed a minor bug,
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4521
Jared