From: Sy Ali sy1234@gmail.com
On 12/21/05, Henry Ortega juandelacruz@gmail.com wrote:
Is there an easy way to edit or create articles with proper HTML formatting?
Short answer: No
I think this is one of many, "Can I beat and hammer MediaWiki into something I'm more used to."
I think, not only is the answer, "No," but it's actually, "No, isn't that grand!"
Case in point: I've never seen a language as beautiful and easy to read as Smalltalk. Yet, everyone who creates a new language makes it look either like C, or like BASIC. But the way it looks affects the way it's used!
I very much prefer wiki markup to XML-style things like HTML. I find it really liberates my thinking, so that formatting is more natural and more subconscious. And I've been doing HTML longer than I've been doing wiki!
I think Ward Cunningham was aware of this. Besides the inventor of wiki, he was also a Smalltalk pioneer and a HyperCard enthusiast. He could have made it more "HTML-like", or could have spent his time making an end-user HTML-entry system instead of wiki, but he crafted wiki markup to fill a need that he saw as unfilled with HTML.
It doesn't make sense to me that we have put manual <BR> tags to get a break. Is there anything I can install extra that would let me display what I entered the way I entered it? If I put a line break after each line, it should distinguish it as a line break and insert a <BR> when displaying.
Hey, why don't you try the <poem></poem> extension that went whipping through here a while ago?
But this is a strange request, coming from someone who wanted "proper HTML formatting." Certainly, HTML is even LESS LIKELY to "display what [you] entered, the way [you] entered it"!
I think you're just being grouchy. Relax. Play with wiki markup a while. Go with the flow.
:::: The per capita wattage that is critical for social well-being lies within an order of magnitude which is far above the horsepower known to four-fifths of humanity and far below the power commanded by any Volkswagen driver. -- Ivan Illich :::: :::: Jan Steinman http://www.IslandSeeds.org/wiki/Energy ::::
On 12/22/05, Jan Steinman Jan@bytesmiths.com wrote:
I think Ward Cunningham was aware of this. Besides the inventor of wiki, he was also a Smalltalk pioneer and a HyperCard enthusiast. He could have made it more "HTML-like", or could have spent his time making an end-user HTML-entry system instead of wiki,
But that wouldn't be "the simplest thing that could possibly work," so
he crafted wiki markup to fill a need that he saw as unfilled with HTML.
Oh how I miss those old late-night alcohol fueled discussions with Ward at OOPSLA!
-- Rick DeNatale
Visit the Project Mercury Wiki Site http://www.mercuryspacecraft.com/
On 12/21/05 9:12 PM, "Jan Steinman" Jan@Bytesmiths.com wrote:
From: Sy Ali sy1234@gmail.com
On 12/21/05, Henry Ortega juandelacruz@gmail.com wrote:
Is there an easy way to edit or create articles with proper HTML formatting?
Short answer: No
I think this is one of many, "Can I beat and hammer MediaWiki into something I'm more used to."
Or another: "Mediawiki would make a _great_ content management system, if only it weren't so... Wiki-ish."
I think, not only is the answer, "No," but it's actually, "No, isn't that grand!"
There's always a trade-off between simplicity and expressiveness and power. In the case of wikis, some authorial expressiveness is sacrificed to two related goals:
1) making authoring simple so people will become engaged 2) keeping enough commonality of appearance so that the "community property" aspect of the wiki is not submerged by individual formatting quirks.
Most content management systems attempt to achieve these goals via templates; wikis typically attempt to achieve them by limited markup vocabularies; bulletin boards often off UBBcode or another markup for similar reasons. None of these strategies is entirely satisfactory even for their own purposes.
Choose the medicine that fits your ills...
-- Joshua
There is a way around this. Use the mediawiki for what it's designed to do, create theis templated interwoven documentation.
You can always format an HTML file any way you want and link it as an external link.
Mix the two together and you may be able to do what you desire -- "mostly."
-----Original Message----- From: mediawiki-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Joshua Yeidel Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2005 2:00 PM To: mediawiki list Subject: Re: [Mediawiki-l] Re: easy html formatting?
On 12/21/05 9:12 PM, "Jan Steinman" Jan@Bytesmiths.com wrote:
From: Sy Ali sy1234@gmail.com
On 12/21/05, Henry Ortega juandelacruz@gmail.com wrote:
Is there an easy way to edit or create articles with proper HTML formatting?
Short answer: No
I think this is one of many, "Can I beat and hammer MediaWiki into something I'm more used to."
Or another: "Mediawiki would make a _great_ content management system, if only it weren't so... Wiki-ish."
I think, not only is the answer, "No," but it's actually, "No, isn't that grand!"
There's always a trade-off between simplicity and expressiveness and power. In the case of wikis, some authorial expressiveness is sacrificed to two related goals:
1) making authoring simple so people will become engaged 2) keeping enough commonality of appearance so that the "community property" aspect of the wiki is not submerged by individual formatting quirks.
Most content management systems attempt to achieve these goals via templates; wikis typically attempt to achieve them by limited markup vocabularies; bulletin boards often off UBBcode or another markup for similar reasons. None of these strategies is entirely satisfactory even for their own purposes.
Choose the medicine that fits your ills...
-- Joshua
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