[xwiki-devs] [VOTE] XWiki 2.0 formal syntax definition - Bold & Link (SUMMARY)

[Vincent Massol]

Note: The new XWiki Syntax 2.0 document is started here:
http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/preview/Drafts/XWikiSyntax20

It's a work in progress and I'm not asking for votes yet. Please read  
it and let me know if there's anything amiss.

Thanks
-Vincent

On Jul 4, 2008, at 4:08 PM, Vincent Massol wrote:

> Results:  7 +1, no 0, no -1, the vote is passed.
>
> I'm creating the new XWiki Syntax 2.0 page right now.
>
> FYI I've opened these 2 features request for wikimodel about this:
> http://cod​e.google.c​om/p/wikim​odel/issue​s/detail?i​d=25
> http://cod​e.google.c​om/p/wikim​odel/issue​s/detail?i​d=26
>
> Thanks
> -Vincent
>
> On Jun 26, 2008, at 6:43 PM, Vincent Massol wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I think I've finished enough in the new rendering implementation so
>> that we should now start defining formally the new XWiki 2.0 syntax.
>>
>> However before we do that let me highlight one important limitation
>> due to the underlying frameworks we use (wikimodel in this case):
>> Wikimodel is using a JavaCC grammar and thus is not able to do look
>> ahead and backtracking (ANTLR can do it, but even if JavaCC could do
>> it it would still be too expensive to use). This means that wikimodel
>> is not able to support the following example:
>>
>> This is a * that is not a bold.
>>
>> When wikimodel sees one of XWiki's special char (like the star for
>> bold) it'll put everything that comes after as bold, till it find
>> another star or till the end of the document.
>>
>> There are 2 solutions out of this:
>> * We don't allow users to enter non-escaped star for example.
>> * Or better we change our syntax for bold so that it uses a 2 chars.
>> For example **. It's less likely people will use 2 stars in their
>> content and this is the reason most wikis use 2 chars. This is also
>> consistent with our other syntaxes for underline, strikethrough,
>> italics, etc. Note that this is also inline with the creole syntax: http://www.wikicreole.org/
>>
>> The same problem exists for links. We're currently using single
>> brackets which means people cannot use brackets in their text. I'd
>> also propose to use double brackets for links as in: [[This is a
>> link]]. Again this is consistent with the rest.
>>
>> There are several other topics to address but let's start with Bold
>> and Link syntaxes right now. Once we agree on them, I'll do the
>> following:
>> * Create a XWiki 2.0 syntax page on xwiki.org and put Bold and Linkj
>> syntax there
>> * Send change requests to wikimodel for the changes we decide
>> * Adapt the new rendering module code
>> * Send other emails for remaining syntax elements
>>
>> To summarize the vote here is about:
>>
>> * Using ** for bold in the new XWiki 2.0 syntax
>> * Using [[ for links in the new XWiki 2.0 syntax
>>
>> Here's my +1 to both.
>>
>> Thanks
>> -Vincent