[Mediawiki-l] Re: easy html formatting?

Jan Steinman Jan at Bytesmiths.com
Thu Dec 22 05:12:42 UTC 2005


> From: Sy Ali <sy1234 at gmail.com>
>
> On 12/21/05, Henry Ortega <juandelacruz at 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 ::::




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