Mailing List Archive: Wikipedia: Wikitech

Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension

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wilson.jim.r at gmail

Feb 20, 2007, 3:34 PM

Post #1 of 23 (3203 views)
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Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension

There was some buzz on this list a while back about supporting Usenet syntax
- such as *bold*, /italics/ and _underscores_.

I have created an extension which provides this facility, which you can read
about here:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:UsenetSyntax

I welcome all feedback - and thanks in advance to anyone who wants to give
it a shot.

-- Jim R. Wilson (jimbojw)
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jra at baylink

Feb 21, 2007, 11:48 AM

Post #2 of 23 (3115 views)
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Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

On Tue, Feb 20, 2007 at 05:34:13PM -0600, Jim Wilson wrote:
> There was some buzz on this list a while back about supporting Usenet syntax
> - such as *bold*, /italics/ and _underscores_.
>
> I have created an extension which provides this facility, which you can read
> about here:
>
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:UsenetSyntax

Woohoo. :-)

> I welcome all feedback - and thanks in advance to anyone who wants to give
> it a shot.

FWIW, the customary rendering (IME) is _italics_, since handwritten
underlining is usually rendered as italics in typesetting, and most
computer displays have, traditionally, not had a good way to render
underlining...

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra[at]baylink.com
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

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wilson.jim.r at gmail

Feb 21, 2007, 11:55 AM

Post #3 of 23 (3109 views)
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Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

> Woohoo. :-)

Thanks - I'm glad you approve!

> FWIW, the customary rendering (IME) is _italics_, since handwritten
> underlining is usually rendered as italics in typesetting, and most
> computer displays have, traditionally, not had a good way to render
> underlining...

Dang. When I asked everybody on the IRC channel, they told me it was
*bold*, _underline_, and /italics/

The change is trivial to make in the code - I just need to know what the
"accepted format" is - I've never used Usenet.

-- Jim

On 2/21/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra[at]baylink.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Feb 20, 2007 at 05:34:13PM -0600, Jim Wilson wrote:
> > There was some buzz on this list a while back about supporting Usenet
> syntax
> > - such as *bold*, /italics/ and _underscores_.
> >
> > I have created an extension which provides this facility, which you can
> read
> > about here:
> >
> > http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:UsenetSyntax
>
> Woohoo. :-)
>
> > I welcome all feedback - and thanks in advance to anyone who wants to
> give
> > it a shot.
>
> FWIW, the customary rendering (IME) is _italics_, since handwritten
> underlining is usually rendered as italics in typesetting, and most
> computer displays have, traditionally, not had a good way to render
> underlining...
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra
> --
> Jay R. Ashworth
> jra[at]baylink.com
> Designer Baylink RFC
> 2100
> Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87
> e24
> St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647
> 1274
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l[at]lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
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jra at baylink

Feb 21, 2007, 12:36 PM

Post #4 of 23 (3111 views)
Permalink

Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 01:55:13PM -0600, Jim Wilson wrote:
> > Woohoo. :-)
>
> Thanks - I'm glad you approve!
>
> > FWIW, the customary rendering (IME) is _italics_, since handwritten
> > underlining is usually rendered as italics in typesetting, and most
> > computer displays have, traditionally, not had a good way to render
> > underlining...
>
> Dang. When I asked everybody on the IRC channel, they told me it was
> *bold*, _underline_, and /italics/
>
> The change is trivial to make in the code - I just need to know what the
> "accepted format" is - I've never used Usenet.

One of the reasons the mainline isn't interested in this is, I suspect,
precisely that it's not well defined. The communities I hang out in
(and I was on Usenet since 1984 or so, back when I could still read The
Entire Feed) tended to stick to *bold* and _whatever_; I didn't see
/these sort of italics/ much, partially because it conflicts with
search string notation, I suspect.

I don't think there's A Standard, myself.

Since it's an extension, and the mainline is unlikely to load it, could
you make it an install-time configurable option whether _this_ renders
as italics or underscore?

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra[at]baylink.com
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

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krstic at solarsail

Feb 21, 2007, 12:42 PM

Post #5 of 23 (3115 views)
Permalink

Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> The communities I hang out in
> (and I was on Usenet since 1984 or so, back when I could still read The
> Entire Feed) tended to stick to *bold* and _whatever_; I didn't see
> /these sort of italics/ much, partially because it conflicts with
> search string notation, I suspect.

FWIW, [[Crossmark]] uses *boldface*, /italicized/, _underlined_ and
Mozilla Thunderbird automatically recognizes the same syntax in
plaintext mail.

--
Ivan Krstić <krstic[at]solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | GPG: 0x147C722D

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wilson.jim.r at gmail

Feb 21, 2007, 1:30 PM

Post #6 of 23 (3117 views)
Permalink

Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> Since it's an extension, and the mainline is unlikely to load it, could
> you make it an install-time configurable option whether _this_ renders
> as italics or underscore?

Done deal. See the extension page for details on how to configure (you'll
need to re-download the extension for the changes to take effect)

-- Jim

On 2/21/07, Ivan Krsti� <krstic[at]solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> wrote:
>
> Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> > The communities I hang out in
> > (and I was on Usenet since 1984 or so, back when I could still read The
> > Entire Feed) tended to stick to *bold* and _whatever_; I didn't see
> > /these sort of italics/ much, partially because it conflicts with
> > search string notation, I suspect.
>
> FWIW, [[Crossmark]] uses *boldface*, /italicized/, _underlined_ and
> Mozilla Thunderbird automatically recognizes the same syntax in
> plaintext mail.
>
> --
> Ivan Krsti� <krstic[at]solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | GPG: 0x147C722D
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l[at]lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
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wilson.jim.r at gmail

Feb 21, 2007, 1:30 PM

Post #7 of 23 (3118 views)
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Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

jra at baylink

Feb 21, 2007, 1:41 PM

Post #8 of 23 (3122 views)
Permalink

Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 03:30:26PM -0600, Jim Wilson wrote:
> Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> > Since it's an extension, and the mainline is unlikely to load it, could
> > you make it an install-time configurable option whether _this_ renders
> > as italics or underscore?
>
> Done deal. See the extension page for details on how to configure (you'll
> need to re-download the extension for the changes to take effect)

Well, Jim; y'know; I like you a lot. :-)

I have to upgrade my home MW to something reasonably current; I'll
install this when I do.

How did you avoid the confusion everyone warns of with

* list
*item
**marking?

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra[at]baylink.com
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

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wilson.jim.r at gmail

Feb 21, 2007, 1:53 PM

Post #9 of 23 (3118 views)
Permalink

Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

The extension's hooking point "ParserBeforeTidy" happens very late in the
parsing of a page. So late, that at this point all interpretation of MW
syntax has already occurred.

For this reason, my extension has no knowledge of <nowiki> delimiters and
will go right through them.

Also, I do no processing for strings that contain tags. So this:

Hi *some bold text*, more text 

Becomes this:

Hi some bold text, more text 

And I have no idea what Tidy would do to that one (probably something very
ugly).

So this is by no means a real actual solution. The "correct solution" (if
you are of the party that thinks there's a problem in the first place) would
be much more complicated and would need to hook into the Parser much more
deeply - so much so that it may not even be possible given current Parser
hooking points.

But it works in a pinch - and as long as everybody uses reasonable syntax,
it should work just fine.

-- Jim

On 2/21/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra[at]baylink.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 03:30:26PM -0600, Jim Wilson wrote:
> > Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> > > Since it's an extension, and the mainline is unlikely to load it,
> could
> > > you make it an install-time configurable option whether _this_ renders
> > > as italics or underscore?
> >
> > Done deal. See the extension page for details on how to configure
> (you'll
> > need to re-download the extension for the changes to take effect)
>
> Well, Jim; y'know; I like you a lot. :-)
>
> I have to upgrade my home MW to something reasonably current; I'll
> install this when I do.
>
> How did you avoid the confusion everyone warns of with
>
> * list
> *item
> **marking?
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra
> --
> Jay R. Ashworth
> jra[at]baylink.com
> Designer Baylink RFC
> 2100
> Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87
> e24
> St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647
> 1274
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l[at]lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
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jra at baylink

Feb 21, 2007, 1:58 PM

Post #10 of 23 (3120 views)
Permalink

Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 03:53:25PM -0600, Jim Wilson wrote:
> > How did you avoid the confusion everyone warns of with
> >
> > * list
> > *item
> > **marking?

> The extension's hooking point "ParserBeforeTidy" happens very late in the
> parsing of a page. So late, that at this point all interpretation of MW
> syntax has already occurred.

So, in short, you dealt with it by running late enough that MW got
precedence, and grabbed all the asterisks it thought it was interested
in.

That works for me.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra[at]baylink.com
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

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wilson.jim.r at gmail

Feb 21, 2007, 2:04 PM

Post #11 of 23 (3130 views)
Permalink

Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

Well yeah, if you wanna put it that way :)

* *So this will work* just fine
**While this will* still be a 2nd level bullet

On 2/21/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra[at]baylink.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 03:53:25PM -0600, Jim Wilson wrote:
> > > How did you avoid the confusion everyone warns of with
> > >
> > > * list
> > > *item
> > > **marking?
>
> > The extension's hooking point "ParserBeforeTidy" happens very late in
> the
> > parsing of a page. So late, that at this point all interpretation of MW
> > syntax has already occurred.
>
> So, in short, you dealt with it by running late enough that MW got
> precedence, and grabbed all the asterisks it thought it was interested
> in.
>
> That works for me.
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra
> --
> Jay R. Ashworth
> jra[at]baylink.com
> Designer Baylink RFC
> 2100
> Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87
> e24
> St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647
> 1274
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l[at]lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
_______________________________________________
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jra at baylink

Feb 21, 2007, 2:04 PM

Post #12 of 23 (3113 views)
Permalink

Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 04:04:29PM -0600, Jim Wilson wrote:
> > So, in short, you dealt with it by running late enough that MW got
> > precedence, and grabbed all the asterisks it thought it was interested
> > in.
> >
> > That works for me.
>
> Well yeah, if you wanna put it that way :)
>
> * *So this will work* just fine
> **While this will* still be a 2nd level bullet

Which, as far as I'm concerned, is the proper thing.

How does it handle this* situation?

Cheers,
-- jra
* IE: the use of an asterisk as an actual footnote marker
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra[at]baylink.com
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

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wilson.jim.r at gmail

Feb 21, 2007, 2:24 PM

Post #13 of 23 (3113 views)
Permalink

Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

It wouldn't notice. The extension is only concerned with pairs of
delimiters which occur at word boundaries (one before and one after).

So we have the following which all work:

Simple _word_ highlighting *is fine*

Usenet syntax within *some tags* works

This sentence *has bold text _and embedded underlined_ text*

And none of these would work:

Trying to _wrap_ some tags.

A sentence spanning *two lines
where the second delimiter* occurs on the second line.

A sentence _with only a leading delimiter
... or only_ a trailing delimiter

Mismatched *delimiters_ have no effect either.

Trying to make something *_both underline_* and bold at the same time
(leaves asterisks, only makes text underlined)

Or trying to _*have it the other way around*_ (only bold, leaves
underscores)

Hope this helps.

-- Jim

On 2/21/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra[at]baylink.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 04:04:29PM -0600, Jim Wilson wrote:
> > > So, in short, you dealt with it by running late enough that MW got
> > > precedence, and grabbed all the asterisks it thought it was interested
> > > in.
> > >
> > > That works for me.
> >
> > Well yeah, if you wanna put it that way :)
> >
> > * *So this will work* just fine
> > **While this will* still be a 2nd level bullet
>
> Which, as far as I'm concerned, is the proper thing.
>
> How does it handle this* situation?
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra
> * IE: the use of an asterisk as an actual footnote marker
> --
> Jay R. Ashworth
> jra[at]baylink.com
> Designer Baylink RFC
> 2100
> Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87
> e24
> St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647
> 1274
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l[at]lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
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hippytrail at gmail

Feb 22, 2007, 1:44 AM

Post #14 of 23 (3120 views)
Permalink

Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

On 2/22/07, Jim Wilson <wilson.jim.r[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> It wouldn't notice. The extension is only concerned with pairs of
> delimiters which occur at word boundaries (one before and one after).

Hmm so it wouldn't work with languages which don't have explicite word
boundaries like Chinese, Japanese, and Thai then )-:

Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail)

> So we have the following which all work:
>
> Simple _word_ highlighting *is fine*
>
> Usenet syntax within *some tags* works
>
> This sentence *has bold text _and embedded underlined_ text*
>
> And none of these would work:
>
> Trying to _wrap_ some tags.
>
> A sentence spanning *two lines
> where the second delimiter* occurs on the second line.
>
> A sentence _with only a leading delimiter
> ... or only_ a trailing delimiter
>
> Mismatched *delimiters_ have no effect either.
>
> Trying to make something *_both underline_* and bold at the same time
> (leaves asterisks, only makes text underlined)
>
> Or trying to _*have it the other way around*_ (only bold, leaves
> underscores)
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> -- Jim
>
> On 2/21/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra[at]baylink.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 04:04:29PM -0600, Jim Wilson wrote:
> > > > So, in short, you dealt with it by running late enough that MW got
> > > > precedence, and grabbed all the asterisks it thought it was interested
> > > > in.
> > > >
> > > > That works for me.
> > >
> > > Well yeah, if you wanna put it that way :)
> > >
> > > * *So this will work* just fine
> > > **While this will* still be a 2nd level bullet
> >
> > Which, as far as I'm concerned, is the proper thing.
> >
> > How does it handle this* situation?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > -- jra
> > * IE: the use of an asterisk as an actual footnote marker
> > --
> > Jay R. Ashworth
> > jra[at]baylink.com
> > Designer Baylink RFC
> > 2100
> > Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87
> > e24
> > St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647
> > 1274
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l[at]lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l[at]lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>

--
http://linguaphile.sf.net

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wilson.jim.r at gmail

Feb 22, 2007, 4:23 AM

Post #15 of 23 (3115 views)
Permalink

Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

> Hmm so it wouldn't work with languages which don't have explicite word
> boundaries like Chinese, Japanese, and Thai then )-:

Nope, not at all. I should probably add this to the documentation.

I won't be much help implementing a solution though since wo bu hui shuo
Zhong-wen.

On 2/22/07, Andrew Dunbar <hippytrail[at]gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/22/07, Jim Wilson <wilson.jim.r[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> > It wouldn't notice. The extension is only concerned with pairs of
> > delimiters which occur at word boundaries (one before and one after).
>
> Hmm so it wouldn't work with languages which don't have explicite word
> boundaries like Chinese, Japanese, and Thai then )-:
>
> Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail)
>
>
> > So we have the following which all work:
> >
> > Simple _word_ highlighting *is fine*
> >
> > Usenet syntax within *some tags* works
> >
> > This sentence *has bold text _and embedded underlined_ text*
> >
> > And none of these would work:
> >
> > Trying to _wrap_ some tags.
> >
> > A sentence spanning *two lines
> > where the second delimiter* occurs on the second line.
> >
> > A sentence _with only a leading delimiter
> > ... or only_ a trailing delimiter
> >
> > Mismatched *delimiters_ have no effect either.
> >
> > Trying to make something *_both underline_* and bold at the same
> time
> > (leaves asterisks, only makes text underlined)
> >
> > Or trying to _*have it the other way around*_ (only bold, leaves
> > underscores)
> >
> > Hope this helps.
> >
> > -- Jim
> >
> > On 2/21/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra[at]baylink.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 04:04:29PM -0600, Jim Wilson wrote:
> > > > > So, in short, you dealt with it by running late enough that MW got
> > > > > precedence, and grabbed all the asterisks it thought it was
> interested
> > > > > in.
> > > > >
> > > > > That works for me.
> > > >
> > > > Well yeah, if you wanna put it that way :)
> > > >
> > > > * *So this will work* just fine
> > > > **While this will* still be a 2nd level bullet
> > >
> > > Which, as far as I'm concerned, is the proper thing.
> > >
> > > How does it handle this* situation?
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > -- jra
> > > * IE: the use of an asterisk as an actual footnote marker
> > > --
> > > Jay R. Ashworth
> > > jra[at]baylink.com
> > > Designer Baylink
> RFC
> > > 2100
> > > Ashworth & Associates The Things I
> Think '87
> > > e24
> > > St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727
> 647
> > > 1274
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > > Wikitech-l[at]lists.wikimedia.org
> > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikitech-l mailing list
> > Wikitech-l[at]lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
> >
>
>
> --
> http://linguaphile.sf.net
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l[at]lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
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jra at baylink

Feb 22, 2007, 6:45 AM

Post #16 of 23 (3120 views)
Permalink

Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 04:24:23PM -0600, Jim Wilson wrote:
> A sentence spanning *two lines
> where the second delimiter* occurs on the second line.

Or, to use the more common terminology in a MediaWiki environment:

A sentence spanning *two paragraphs
where a hard CR separates them* and the second delimiter occurs not in
the same paragraph.

Since that's uncommon in the CR's-break-paragraphs-not-lines world of
MediaWiki, it doesn't seem bothersome, to me at least.

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra[at]baylink.com
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

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stevagewp at gmail

Feb 22, 2007, 7:24 PM

Post #17 of 23 (3119 views)
Permalink

Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

On 2/22/07, Jim Wilson <wilson.jim.r[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> Dang. When I asked everybody on the IRC channel, they told me it was
> *bold*, _underline_, and /italics/

That would be the simplest typesetting convention. But if it's
semantics, not appearance, that you're after, then I believe the
convention is _italics_ and *bold*.

Two questions:
* Why *single* punctuation rather than **double**?
* Since when does anyone use or want underline on MediaWiki? :) Didn't
underline become evil when it became the web standard for hyperlinks?

Steve

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wilson.jim.r at gmail

Feb 22, 2007, 8:40 PM

Post #18 of 23 (3118 views)
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Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

On 2/22/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> That would be the simplest typesetting convention. But if it's
> semantics, not appearance, that you're after, then I believe the
> convention is _italics_ and *bold*.

Though the official "typesetting interpretation" is the default, you can get
this behavior (and blow away underlining altogether), add this to your
LocalSettings.php after the extension's "require" statement:

$wgUsenetSyntaxMappings = array( '*' => 'bold', '_' => 'italics' );

> Two questions:
> * Why *single* punctuation rather than **double**?

Fixed. Now supports both *single* and **double** syntax for asterisks. No
change has been made for slashes or underscores.

You'll need to download the latest source from here to see the change:
http://jimbojw.com/wiki/index.php?title=UsenetSyntax

Note: I have not incremented the extension's version number yet since I
still consider this "development time".

> * Since when does anyone use or want underline on MediaWiki? :) Didn't
> underline become evil when it became the web standard for hyperlinks?

Meh. You can disable this (as per above).

-- Jim

On 2/22/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp[at]gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/22/07, Jim Wilson <wilson.jim.r[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> > Dang. When I asked everybody on the IRC channel, they told me it was
> > *bold*, _underline_, and /italics/
>
> That would be the simplest typesetting convention. But if it's
> semantics, not appearance, that you're after, then I believe the
> convention is _italics_ and *bold*.
>
> Two questions:
> * Why *single* punctuation rather than **double**?
> * Since when does anyone use or want underline on MediaWiki? :) Didn't
> underline become evil when it became the web standard for hyperlinks?
>
> Steve
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l[at]lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
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stevagewp at gmail

Feb 22, 2007, 8:47 PM

Post #19 of 23 (3125 views)
Permalink

Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

On 2/23/07, Jim Wilson <wilson.jim.r[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> Fixed. Now supports both *single* and **double** syntax for asterisks. No
> change has been made for slashes or underscores.

Heh, I'd assumed you would add // and __, too. But then, I was coming
at this from a kind of pure wiki syntax point of view, where as much
syntax as possible is just doubled punctuation: ** // __ {{ [[ == .
Though I now see that __ would conflict with some magic words like
__NOTOC__.

But as long as we're not actually trying to achieve WikiBabel (or
whatever it's called), there's no compelling reason to do so.

Steve

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evan at prodromou

Feb 23, 2007, 4:39 AM

Post #20 of 23 (3121 views)
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Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

You should probably look at reST, a popular wiki-like text format that
is based on the same formatting conventions you're trying to emulate.

http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html

~Evan

________________________________________________________________________
Evan Prodromou <evan[at]prodromou.name>
http://evan.prodromou.name/

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jra at baylink

Feb 23, 2007, 6:26 AM

Post #21 of 23 (3112 views)
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Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

On Fri, Feb 23, 2007 at 02:24:09PM +1100, Steve Bennett wrote:
> Two questions:
> * Why *single* punctuation rather than **double**?

Because the goal is to leverage what people *actually do*. I almost
*never* see doubled punctuation.

> * Since when does anyone use or want underline on MediaWiki? :) Didn't
> underline become evil when it became the web standard for hyperlinks?

Pretty much. :-)

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra[at]baylink.com
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

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wilson.jim.r at gmail

Feb 23, 2007, 8:17 AM

Post #22 of 23 (3115 views)
Permalink

Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

Steve Bennet wrote:
> Heh, I'd assumed you would add // and __, too. But then, I was coming
> at this from a kind of pure wiki syntax point of view, where as much
> syntax as possible is just doubled punctuation: ** // __ {{ [.[. == .
> Though I now see that __ would conflict with some magic words like
> __NOTOC__.

Actually the underscores wouldn't conflict since the hook happens so late in
the process. By the time the hook is run, those have already been removed.

And MW is smart enough to, for example __leave this alone__ since "leave
this alone" is not a recognized magic word.

Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> Because the goal is to leverage what people *actually do*. I almost
> *never* see doubled punctuation.

That's a good point too though - I'm beginning to think I should probably
take the doubles back out.

Evan Prodromou wrote:
> You should probably look at reST, a popular wiki-like text format that
> is based on the same formatting conventions you're trying to emulate.

Yeah - that's interesting. reST is one of many _many_ light markup
languages out there - like Markdown, Textile or APT[1].

Maybe what I should do is fix the current problems with UsenetSyntax (like
clobbering through tags and affecting preformatted text blocks) by breaking
it up into two extensions:

* One extension that doesn't do anything to the text itself, but adds a hook
that other extensions leverage to safely parse for their own syntax
* A demo implementation of such a leveraging extension which just so happens
to implement Usenet style syntax.

The upside of the previous plan is that I'm less likely to get bogged down
in "wouldn't it be cool if's" because extension devs can make their own.

The downside of the plan is that people might still send me "wouldn't it be
cool if's", and I'd have gone through the work of abstracting the layers for
no benefit.

-- Jim

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lightweight_markup_languages

On 2/23/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra[at]baylink.com> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Feb 23, 2007 at 02:24:09PM +1100, Steve Bennett wrote:
> > Two questions:
> > * Why *single* punctuation rather than **double**?
>
> Because the goal is to leverage what people *actually do*. I almost
> *never* see doubled punctuation.
>
> > * Since when does anyone use or want underline on MediaWiki? :) Didn't
> > underline become evil when it became the web standard for hyperlinks?
>
> Pretty much. :-)
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra
> --
> Jay R. Ashworth
> jra[at]baylink.com
> Designer Baylink RFC
> 2100
> Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87
> e24
> St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647
> 1274
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l[at]lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
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jra at baylink

Feb 23, 2007, 8:31 AM

Post #23 of 23 (3119 views)
Permalink

Re: Announcing UsenetSyntax Extension [In reply to]

On Fri, Feb 23, 2007 at 10:17:28AM -0600, Jim Wilson wrote:
> Steve Bennet wrote:
> > Heh, I'd assumed you would add // and __, too. But then, I was coming
> > at this from a kind of pure wiki syntax point of view, where as much
> > syntax as possible is just doubled punctuation: ** // __ {{ [.[. == .
> > Though I now see that __ would conflict with some magic words like
> > __NOTOC__.
>
> Actually the underscores wouldn't conflict since the hook happens so late in
> the process. By the time the hook is run, those have already been removed.
>
> And MW is smart enough to, for example __leave this alone__ since "leave
> this alone" is not a recognized magic word.

Thanks for the addendum; that was my next question. Of course,
overlapping markup like that leaves you open to the possibility someone
will expand the magic word list in a later release -- it's *still* not
the best idea...

> Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> > Because the goal is to leverage what people *actually do*. I almost
> > *never* see doubled punctuation.
>
> That's a good point too though - I'm beginning to think I should probably
> take the doubles back out.

I would say so, myself.

> Evan Prodromou wrote:
> > You should probably look at reST, a popular wiki-like text format that
> > is based on the same formatting conventions you're trying to emulate.
>
> Yeah - that's interesting. reST is one of many _many_ light markup
> languages out there - like Markdown, Textile or APT[1].

Markdown. Heh. :-)

> Maybe what I should do is fix the current problems with UsenetSyntax (like
> clobbering through tags and affecting preformatted text blocks) by breaking
> it up into two extensions:
>
> * One extension that doesn't do anything to the text itself, but adds a hook
> that other extensions leverage to safely parse for their own syntax
> * A demo implementation of such a leveraging extension which just so happens
> to implement Usenet style syntax.

Hee. I love good factoring.

> The upside of the previous plan is that I'm less likely to get bogged down
> in "wouldn't it be cool if's" because extension devs can make their own.

Good point.

> The downside of the plan is that people might still send me "wouldn't it be
> cool if's", and I'd have gone through the work of abstracting the layers for
> no benefit.

Except that you can then say "see how easy it is to..."

Or point them to Asking Good Questions. :-)

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra[at]baylink.com
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

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