TextFormattingRules

Wiki Text Formatting Rules    (UU)

Simple editing is one of the major benefits of using a wiki. Users can edit pages without knowing HTML, and still use many formatting features of HTML. Most wikis define a set of formatting rules to convert plain text into HTML. Some wikis (like this one) also allow some HTML "tags", like and within a page. (Some wikis use raw HTML instead of special formatting rules.)    (UV)

Tips | Hints    (UW)

The following text is an overview of the PurpleWiki (the flavor of Wiki being used here) text formatting rules. For examples without all the explanatory text, see the EditSamplePage. To try these rules for yourself, please feel free to edit the SandBox page. To see how any page is formatted, just follow the link "Edit text of this page" at the bottom of the page.    (UX)

New Pages    (ANQ)

The esasiest way to create a new page is to make up a new WikiWord for it. This will become the new page title if such a page doesn't already exist on the wiki. One then can then on the WikiWord, and start populating/editing this new page. (... more below    (ANR)

Basic Text Formatting:    (UY)

Entering text on a wiki can be done simply. Follow these guidelines:    (UZ)

• Carriage returns (ie pressing the Enter key) are significant in formatting a wiki page    (V0)
• Multiple spaces and tabs are ignored    (V1)
• use '' (two single-quotes) for italics, ''' (three single-quotes) for bold, and ''''' (five single-quotes) for bold-italics. Alternatively, use tags <b>bold</b> and <i>italic</i>    (V2)
• Use triple braces {{{ your content }}} (v.96 or after) or the tag <tt> (v.95 or prior) for monospace text</tt> (tt stands for typewriter text)    (V3)
• The first character entered on a line often controls the formatting of the text on that line, in brief (see below for details):    (V4)
• " " space also causes text to appear in a monospaced font where spaces are significant    (V5)
• ":" colon causes text to be indented    (V6)
• "=" equals - followed by a space - creates a heading, a trailing "=" - preceded by a space - is required    (V7)
• "*" asterisk creates a bulleted list    (V8)
• "#" hash creates a numbered list    (V9)
• ";" semicolon creates a definition list, a ":" colon is required subsequently on the same line    (XP)

• Leave a single blank line between paragraphs.    (VB)
• PurpleNumbers are automatically generated for every paragraph and every item of a list.    (VC)
• Suppress wiki formatting and linking through escaped WikiWiki text - by enclosing the word/phrase between the "<nowiki> ... </nowiki>" pair (of tags)    (VD)

Including Images    (VE)

Insert an image using a full URL, e.g.    (VF)

• it will show up like this:    (XN)

• Image types supported are .gif, .jpg, .png, .bmp, and .jpeg    (VH)
• don't forget to include a caption for accessibility considerations.    (XO)

Wiki Headings    (VI)

Up to six levels of heading can be used. You create headings by using a "=" equals as the first character on a line.    (VJ)

eg    (VL)

Section Heading 1    (VM)

Section Heading 2    (VN)

Section Heading Three    (VO)

Section Heading Four    (VP)

Section Heading 5    (VQ)

Section Heading 6    (VR)

Number and Bullet Lists    (VS)

You create bullets and numbered lists by using an "*" asterisk or "#" hash as the first character on a line. eg    (VT)

• bullets    (VU)
1. numbered list depth two    (VV)

• bullets    (VW)
• indented bullets    (VX)
• numbered list    (VY)
• numbered list    (VZ)
1. indented list    (W0)
2. indented list    (W1)
1. depth 3 indented list    (W2)
2. more    (W3)
3. and more    (W4)
• and more    (W5)

Page, URL, Links and PurpleNumbers:    (W6)

Wiki Pages    (W7)

You can link to a page by removing the spaces between two or more words, and starting each word with a capital letter. For instance, WikiWord and TextFormattingRules are samples of page links. All WikiWords are automatically linked, there is no additional syntax needed (this is actually one of the most powerful features of the wiki.)    (W8)

Nonexistent pages, like SampleUndefinedPage?, will be displayed with a dotted underscore link (a question mark link for purplewiki versions prior to v0.95). That link indicates the page doesn't exist yet--follow the link to create and edit the new page.    (WA)

Besides using WikiWord(s) to invoke links and new pages, one can also create a free link by: surround text with two pairs of square brackets like [[Sample Free Link]]. This allows all-downcase or atomic capitalized names as well as strange names including punctuation.    (W9)

Child Pages    (ANS)

This wiki (PurpleWiki) supports one (1) level of child pages. To create a child page, one can simply add a "/" (slash) in front of a page name, while one is on the parent page.    (ANT)

For example, one is on a page: "VirtualWorkshop_2007_01_08" and wants to create twelve child pages for breakout group discussions. In this case, what one would do is to initialize the pages by typing:    (ANU)

  /BreakoutGroup01
  /BreakoutGroup02
  /BreakoutGroup03
  ...
  /BreakoutGroup11
  /BreakoutGroup12    (ANV)

... one can then click onto the above links, e.g. "/BreakoutGroup02", and start populating/editing the child page: "VirtualWorkshop_2007_01_08/BreakoutGroup02"    (ANW)

URLs    (WB)

• Plain URL link: e.g. http://cwe.cim3.net/forum/ -- all one needs to do is to type out the URL (do not leave out the "http://") and the wiki will present that URL as a clickable link on the page.    (WC)

• Named or Labeled URL link: e.g. [http://community.cim3.net The CWE Community Site] -- this will show up as The CWE Community Site -- the syntax being: open square bracket, the URL, space, the Name or Label, then close square bracket. In this example, the URL is "http://community.cim3.net" and the Label is "The CWE Community Site"    (WD)

URLs Using PurpleNumbers or Anchors    (WG)

• PurpleNumbers are automatically generated when the "Preview" or "Save" button is pressed, during an wiki edit session.    (WI)
• One can copy the link of a PurpleNumbers by doing a "mouse-over" over the purple number, right-mouse-click (nominally, for the right-hand mouse users) and then select "copy shortcut" or "copy link location" (or its equivalent, depending on your browser.)    (WJ)
• when editing previously created content, always leave the PurpleNumbers alone, they should stay, as they are formated (like: " {nid 3BE}" at the end of a line, with a space in front of it.    (WK)

Definition Text:    (X2)

Term with indented definition: [without a blank line between term and definition]    (XQ)

Term (indented)    (16Z)

Definition (indented two levels)    (X7)

Term (indented twice)    (170)

Definition (indented to third level)    (X9)

...which looks like:    (XB)

Term    (XC)

Definition (indented)    (XD)

Term (indented)    (XE)

Definition (indented two levels)    (XF)

Term (indented twice)    (XG)

Definition (indented to third level)    (XH)

HTML    (WL)

• Encoding the "<" less than, ">" greater than, and "&" ampersand characters is optional.    (WM)
• Characters such as <, © and ∞ may be encoded on pages as: "<", "©" and "∞" respectively. See http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/entities.html.    (WN)

Miscellaneous rules:    (WO)

• To quote text without applying the wiki formatting rules, enclose it within a ... section. Within a nowiki section, only HTML-quoting of special characters (<>&) will occur - no other formatting rules will be applied.    (WP)
• A line which ends in a backslash character (\) will be joined with the next line before most formatting rules are applied. This can be useful for breaking up long sections of text in line-sensitive sections (like lists or indented text).    (WQ)

Accessibility Considerations    (XI)

Compliance with Section 508 (of the August 1998 amendment of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act) is required for all US federal government CWE sites, and highly recommended for all other sites. Users (which will be the content developers) should review the ITI VPAT - Best Practices for more details, and to make sure their work meets with requirement.    (XJ)

When users author content that involve non-text elements to convey information, like color pallettes, images & graphics, multimedia presentation, image maps, tables, frames, and when making use of scripts, plug-ins, applets, forms and/or timed responses, they should take responsibility to ensure section 508 compliance, if it is so required. Section 1194.22 - Web-based Internet Information and Applications of the Section 508 VPAT should be referenced.    (XK)

Wiki pages should generally have no problem with Section 508 compliance as the pages are essentially text based. In the case of images, which will be displayed whenever a compatible image element (e.g. a link to a png, gif or jpg file) shows up within the body of the page. To ensure compliance, users should properly caption such linked image elements. For example:    (XL)

• Picture of the CWE system being demonstrated.    (XM)

-- Credit: the content relating to the wiki syntax on this page is excerpted mostly from UseModWiki's TextFormattingRules, modified to reflect the PurpleWiki implementation (which is the flavor of Wiki being used here). PurpleWiki has been creating originally by extending from the UseModWiki code base.    (WR)