Wiki Syntax

summary:

Inquiry as to the method of writing up articles...

Wiki Syntax

booyah_boy 1164898839|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Frankly, while this thread could be posted in the "New features and ideas" forum, I thought it more appropriate to do so herein. Feel free to move this thread if need be. Thank you.

I was merely wondering why Wikidot doesn't use the MediaWiki syntax in editing. Is said coding proprietary? I am aware that the underlying structure of Wikidot was built from the ground up (courtesy of this thread), however, I'm uncertain why you, Michal, chose to create a new editing set-up, rather than use that most commonly found in wikis.

For those uncertain of what I am referring to, or who have little experience outside of Wikidot with wikis, understand that the majority of current wiki-based sites operate on the same system, that created by the Wikipedia Foundation (of Wikipedia.com): MediaWiki. MediaWiki allows a page to be formatted in a manner unique from that which Wikidot employs. For example, here at the Dot you must insert two backslashes ( // ) before and after text you wish to italicize, however, in a forum operating on the MediaWiki system you must insert two apostrophes ( '' ).
I suspect the MediaWiki system is proprietary, and thus, Wikidot is not allowed - by law - to "copy" such, however, I would like some confirmation, if possible.
If that is not the case, might I inquire why a different system of formatting is being used? Having, like most I know involved with wikis, much more experience on the MediaWiki system, I continue to create errors in my wiki by forgetting that I no longer use said formatting tags.

Re: Wiki Syntax

pieterh 1164904305|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

There are dozens of wiki languages, and mediawiki is one of the more complex ones. Personally I've found the wikidot language to be clean and easy to learn.

Re: Wiki Syntax

booyah_boy 1164906953|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Kindly do not misconstrue my words, pieterh, as I too am quite fond of the formatting language used herein. As you will note in my intial post, I am "merely wondering why" not disparaging the current system. Thanks for your reply.

EDIT:
My apologies, pieterh. Reading over my reply after having posted it led me to see that it came off rather too…harsh. Please understand that I meant no offense in requesting that you "not misconstrue my words" and apologize if any was taken.

last edited on 1164907193|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by booyah_boy + show more

Re: Wiki Syntax

pieterh 1165144559|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Np. There is no 'proprietary' language, afaik (not unless/until people start patenting languages, which would be abominable). The reasons for not using mediawiki are mainl historic afaics; the original wiki engine that Michal used had its own language.

Re: Wiki Syntax

michal frackowiak 1165405063|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Wikidot parser has been based on PEAR::Text_Wiki and the syntax has been borrowed from it.

I realize MediaWiki has a well established syntax but the only benefit I could use would be: there are already people that know this syntax. I (and MANY others) do not find ''italic'' anywhere as intuitive as //italic// to get italic.

There have been many proposals to replace MediaWiki syntax with sth better but apart from this I simply think that MW syntax is awful in many ways.

The last thing is that quite soon people will be able to create pages without seeing the wiki syntax at all. This will be a big step. ;-)

Re: Wiki Syntax

KnightTemplar 1208987756|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I do find, however, that it is just a little bit "lacking" when it comes to allowing specific things. I may just not be looking in the correct location or may be I just haven't learned the syntax well enough.

Some of the "items" that I've seen in Wikipedia but have been unable to find here are these:
Boilerplate Text - the "This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it" type things several can be found here. I know that each of those is made as a page individually, but am not entirely sure how I would go about making/using them here.
Alphabetical Table of Contents (horizontal) - mainly used in glossary pages or very large lists

Those are the two big items I've looked for but can't find.

Re: Wiki Syntax

Helmuti_pdorf 1209022580|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

1) Boilerplate text are "simple" templates (not true I know! :) ) with often different self explanary comments and categories.

Every one can do the same here in wikidot.

Only the problem of inserting a "new created" template in an old existing page ( and overwriting with such pull down menu the page content ) is not so easy to solve.

Could be an easy system of "[[include template:stub]]" ( as an example) can help better ?
( the insertion is to do manually in wikipedia often too!)

2) Alphabetical ToC ( horizontal) depends:

• on the screeen size and
• on the number of section headers and
• on the length of the different headers and
• on the summary of all this in relation to the screen size..

A lot of work to do for a developer !

last edited on 1209022701|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by Helmuti_pdorf + show more