[xwiki-devs] [Discussion] Designing the new Rendering/Parsing component/API

[Vincent Massol]

On Sep 11, 2007, at 10:43 PM, Fabio Mancinelli wrote:

>
> On Sep 11, 2007, at 1:46 PM, Vincent Massol wrote:
>>
>>     1. Have a WikiSyntax Object (A simple class with one property: a
>> combox box with different syntaxes: XWiki Legacy, Creole, MediaWiki,
>> Confluence, JSPWiki, etc) that users can attach to pages to tell the
>> Renderers what syntax is used. If no such object is attached then
>> it'll default to XWiki's default syntax (XWiki Legacy or Creole for
>> example).
>>     2. Have some special syntax, independent of the wiki syntaxes to
>> tell the Rendered that such block of content should be rendered with
>> that given syntax. Again there would be a default.
>>
>
> Regarding multiple syntaxes... Is it really a requirement to support
> them?
> I think that adding this feature could lead to confusion.
>
> For example, imagine an XWiki-Pedia as sketched in 1. A contributor
> could potentially need to edit
> 3 documents written in 3 different syntaxes.
>
> Solution 2. is even worse because it pushes this heterogeneity down
> to the document level.
>
> An alternative solution could be to have a model for the page that is
> "presented" in different syntaxes when the page is edited. In this
> way a document can be edited in whatever syntax the user feels
> comfortable with. However this raises several issues... A model that
> is the LCM of all the supported syntaxes is fine, but what happens
> when an element in the model is requested to be presented in a syntax
> that doesn't support it?

I agree with all you said.

> The best option, probably, is to keep it simple by having and
> supporting only a single syntax for editing pages, with some "import"
> plugins that can translate a previously existing content to that
> syntax when a new page is created.

I think I prefer the option suggested by JV, i.e. have a  
configuration option at the level of the wiki to decide what syntax a  
wiki is using. Imports are required too but since WikiModel supports  
several syntaxes why not offer this feature to users. That would help  
a lot for people who come from an existing wiki and want to switch to  
xwiki.

Of course, in my initial email there's an open question about  
WikiModel's syntax of macros across syntaxes that we need to resolve.

Thanks
-Vincent

> Sorry if this was an already discussed topic or if I missed some
> relevant detail :)
>
> Cheers,
> Fabio