Wiki Text Formatting Rules

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 also allow some HTML "tags", like , , and <pre> within a page. (Some wikis allow full HTML markup in place of special rules - this Wiki does not.)

Tips | Hints

The following text is an overview of the UseMod:UseModWiki text formatting rules. 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.

Basic Text Formatting:

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

Carriage returns (ie pressing the Enter key) are significant in formatting a wiki page
Multiple spaces and tabs are ignored
use '' (two single-quotes) for italics, ''' (three single-quotes) for bold, and ''''' (five single-quotes) for bold-italics. Alternatively, use tags bold and italic
Use tag <tt>for monospace text</tt> (tt stands for typewriter text)
The first character entered on a line often controls the formatting of the text on that line, in brief (see below and sub pages for details):
- " " space causes text to appear in a monospaced font where spaces are significant
- ":" colon causes text to be indented
- "=" equals - followed by a space - creates a heading, a trailing "=" - preceded by a space - is required
- "*" asterisk creates a bulleted list
- "#" hash creates a numbered list
- ";" semicolon creates a definition list, a ":" colon is required subsequently on the same line
- "----" four hyphens creates a horizontal line
- "||" vertical bar creates a table.

: Repetition of the first character on the line generally increases the indentation or emphasis

Leave a single blank line between paragraphs.
Suppress wiki formatting and linking through escaped WikiWiki text -- <nowiki>WikiWiki</nowiki>
Insert an image using a full URL, eg http://usemod.com/wiki.gif

Page, URL, and InterWiki Links:

Wiki Pages

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, WikiHome and TextFormatting are samples of page links.

People abhorring PascalCase can use a free link: 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.

Nonexistent pages, like SampleUndefinedPage?, will be displayed with a question mark link. The question mark link indicates the page doesn't exist yet--follow the link to create and edit the page. [The sample page used here is a special example page--you can't define it.]

URLs

Plain URL link: http://perl-win32-gui.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi?SandBox -- http://perl-win32-gui.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi?SandBox

Named URL link: [Sandbox] -- [http://perl-win32-gui.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi?SandBox Sandbox]

Image link: -- [http://perl-win32-gui.sourceforge.net/ http://perl-win32-gui.sourceforge.net/img/win32-gui-small.png]

URLS Using Anchors?

[Buried Treasure] -- [http://perl-win32-gui.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi?SandBox#anchor Buried Treasure]

To set an anchor:

[#anchor]

On-Site URLS

To make on-site links you must re-specify the protocol e.g.:

[like this local link] -- [http:/img/win32-gui-wiki.png like this local link]
[this relative link] -- [http:../img/win32-gui-wiki.gif this relative link]
[this anchor on the current page] -- [http:#anchor this anchor on the current page]

InterWiki

Links to other wikis and sites can be achieved using the following synax. Currently only 2 prefixes are supported:

UseMod for links to wiki pages at http://www.usemod.com/
Win32GuiDoc for links to Win32::GUI package documentation

InterWiki link: UseMod:InterWiki -- UseMod:InterWiki

InterWiki link: Win32GuiDoc:richedit -- Win32GuiDoc:richedit

You can separate links from adjacent text with spaces or the special "" (two double-quotes) delimiter. The "" delimiter is not displayed - it is useful for cases like plural forms of page links (such as UseModWiki?s). In nearly all cases, trailing punctuation is ignored, so you can safely make links like http://www.usemod.com/, without the trailing comma being part of the link. You can also use FreeLinks?.

Lists:

Simple lists:

* Text for a bulleted list item.
** Text for second-level list.
*** Text for third level, etc.

...which looks like:

Text for a bulleted list item.
- Text for second-level list.
  - Text for third level, etc.

Numbered lists:

# Text for a numbered list item.
## Text for second-level list.
### Text for third level, etc.
## Another Text for the second level.

...which looks like:

Text for a numbered list item.
1. Text for second-level list.
  1. Text for third level, etc.
2. Another Text for the second level.

Indented Text:

: Text to be indented (quote-block)
:: Text indented more
::: Text indented to third level

...which looks like:

Text to be indented (quote-block)

Text indented more

: Text indented to third level

Definition Text:

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

;Term:Definition (indented)
;;Term (indented):Definition (indented two levels)
;;;Term (indented twice):Definition (indented to third level)

...which looks like:

Term

Definition (indented)

Term (indented)

Definition (indented two levels)

Term (indented twice): Definition (indented to third level)

Images

Just provide the URL, and the image will be inserted inline.

These extensions are recognized: gif, jpg, png, bmp, jpeg

Note case sensitivity: capitalized extensions such as .GIF, .PNG, .JPG, etc. do NOT work.

If you have a choice, results are usually best with png for computer generated images, and JPEG for photographic images.

Preformatted Text

Individual lines can be displayed as preformatted (fixed-width or "typewriter"-font) text by placing one or more spaces at the start of the line. Other wiki formatting (like links) will be applied to this kind of preformatted text.

Additionally, multi-line sections can be marked as pre-formatted text using lines starting with <pre> (to start pre-formatted text), and </pre> (to end preformatted text). The <pre> and </pre> tags are not displayed. Wiki links and other formatting is not done within a preformatted section. (If you want wiki formatting, use spaces at the start of the line instead of the <pre> and </pre> tags.)

For instance:

Pre-formatted section here.  No other link =link=
  or format processing

is done on pre-formatted sections.

For instance, UseModWiki is not a link here.

and:

   This is the starting-spaces version of
   preformatted text.  Note that links like
   UseModWiki? still work.

Futhermore (and specific to this wiki) you may surround perl code blocks with <perlcode> ... </perlcode> tags to get nicly coloured perl listings:


#!perl -w
use strict;
use warnings;

use Win32::GUI;

my $mw = Win32::GUI->new(
  -title => "Main Window",
);

$mw->Show();
Win32::GUI::Dialog();
exit(0);
__END__

Miscellaneous rules:

To quote text without applying the wiki formatting rules, enclose it within a <nowiki> ... </nowiki> section. Within a nowiki section, only HTML-quoting of special characters (<>&) will occur - no other formatting rules will be applied.
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).
If raw-HTML sections are enabled (they are disabled by default - and are disabled in this wiki), you can enter raw HTML code within an <html> ... </html> section. Note that no quoting is done, so you will need to use sequences like < if you want to display a < character.
Most of the formatting rules are order-independent. On rare occasions, the order of processing may be important. The rules are processed in the following order: raw HTML sections, HTML quoting, nowiki tags, backslash line joining, preformatted sections, paragraphs, lists and indented text, horizontal lines, italic/bold text, URLs, and finally ordinary WikiName? links. [No longer fully accurate for 0.88, needs updating.]
To redirect one wiki page to another, use the following syntax:
```
#REDIRECT TargetPage

#REDIRECT TargetPage/SubPage
```

See also: UseMod:TextFormattingRules
: UseMod:TextFormattingRules/WikiTextFormatting
: UseMod:TextFormattingRules/WikiLists
: UseMod:TextFormattingRules/WikiHeadings
: UseMod:TextFormattingRules/TableOfContents
: UseMod:TextFormattingRules/WikiImages
: UseMod:TextFormattingRules/WikiLines
: UseMod:TextFormattingRules/WikiTables
: UseMod:WikiBugs/TextFormatting
: UseMod:WikiMarkupLanguage