Spir

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Hello,

I'm here as a simple amateur of all kinds of languages (including some human ones ;-)). Discovered this project while searching for improvements for the wikiDot markup, a really great wiki which engine is beeing delivered as open source. Have looked around, thought and designed a lot already. I'll try to expose the results of this reflexion progressively, here and on talk pages for specific topics.

personal position#

I'm rather looking for a basically better wiki markup language, than for one compatible with the present markups. So that principles such as

• no conflict
• not new

or

• (not really expressed but very present:) mostly used

are not relevant for me: they're rather second stage criteria. What I mean is that, to my opinion, these criteria are fundamental for a interwiki-only markup, precisely for mixing creole with local markup -- which sounds a bit alien to my ears. Otherwise

• author-friendliness
• clarity/simplicity/consistency

&

• speed to learn/memorize/master

are much more prominent goals.

glossary#

style tag

A kind of mark/tag used to enclose a segment of text in order to apply the same formatting to the whole piece.
In creole, double characters are used, for instance :

//distinct// **important** [[link]]

distinct important link

layout tag

A kind of mark/tag placed at the start of a logical_line in order to set its layout. Example :

* list item

• list item

logical & visual newlines

:A newline is a mark usually inserted by pressing the return/enter key. A newline is both a plain character that creates a new visual line and, in most cases, a tag that starts a new line-component (see comment about this below under 'page structure').
Logically enough, a newline preceeded by an escape (plain-character) tag becomes a visual newline : it loses its tag function but remains a plain character, thus starting a new visual line without marking the end of the logical line.

bla bla bla ~ bla bla

logical & visual lines

:A chunk of text ended by a newline mark.
In regular text, a logical line is a paragraph ; it can also be a simple line, a header, a list item, a table row, when started with the appropriate layout tag.
A logical line may be split into visual lines with a soft newline. Example :

A logical line \\
split in two visual lines.

A logical line
split in two visual lines.

segment

:A bit of text inside a logical_line
May be enclosed in delimiter tag to indicate its style.

component

:Either a sequence of segments of the same type (e.g. a list made of list items), or a part of page included as a hole instead of beeing written (e.g. TOC, note list, image) -- see "page structure"

section = header / body

: Major semantic tailoring of a page. A header is a segment ; a body is a sequence of blocks -- see "page structure"

page structure#

please improve & criticize on talk page

note the major difference between semantic & markup page structures

semantic page structure#

page                : title body
title               : = regular_text NL
body                : block*
component           : header | paragraph_component | bullet_list | number_list | table | imported_component | computed_component 
header              : =(=)+ regular_text NL
paragraph_component : paragraph+
paragraph           : text NL
bullet_list         : bullet_list_item NL
bullet_list_item    : *+ text NL
number_list         : number_list_item NL
number_list_item    : *+ text NL
table               : table_row
table_row           : (|text)+ |
imported_component  : {{//type// //ID// (|//parameter//=//value//)*}}
computed_component  : ((//type// //ID// (|//parameter//=//value//)*))
text                : plain_text | styled_text
styled_text         : distinct_text | important_text | raw_text | monospace_text | link | variable
distinct_text       : //plain_text//
important_text      : **plain_text**
raw_text            : ??plain_text??
monospace_text      : ??plain_text??
link                : [[//address// (|//text/)?]]
variable            : <<//name//>>
plain_text          : (//list of valid text characters separated with '|')*

markup page structure#

page    : title body
title   : = regular_text NL
body    : segment*
segment : header | paragraph | bullet_list_item | number_list_item | table_row | imported_block | computed_block

n o t e s

what I prize in creole#

• the word "creole"
• the consensus processus
• the focus on the most important features
• the trend toward intuitiveness (self-explaining tags)
• more & more

what I miss / what I don't like#

topics that will be further explained below/later

• page title (!=page_name) & subtitle
• sub-headers
• "distinct" (example, quotation, remark, advice) & "important" segments parallel to "distinct" (italic) & "important" (bold) segments
• syntax for all kinds of magic-words, variables & functions -- see for instance wikiMedia variables
• syntax for "imported" blocks (page, image, widget...)
• syntax for "computed" blocks (toc, index, page list...)
• nowiki and monospace should be totally distinct !
• syntax for native (x)html, including (java)scripts (I propose most simply to double <> tags to )