HeaderSyntax

MeatballWiki | RecentChanges | Random Page | Indices | Categories

Following MoinMoin's lead, UseModWiki 0.91 now has syntax for headers. Briefly, it works like this (WikiSyntax, followed by emitted HTML):

= Level one header =: <h1>Level one header</h1>

== Level two header ==: <h2>Level two header</h2>

=== Level three header ===: <h3>Level three header</h3>

: Note that the space after the initial "=" character(s) and before the final "=" character(s) is currently required. (It might become optional in the future.)

InfiniteMonkey model

It's my opinion that balancing HeaderSyntax is not a HumanSyntax? as it adds no information whatsoever to force the user to do this, and it creates potential errors. Rather, we should ask only

= Level one header: <h1>Level one header</h1>

== Level two header: <h2>Level two header</h2>

=== Level three header: <h3>Level three header</h3>

Spaces immediately following the equal signs should be ignored.

The text of the header should automatically form an AnchoredHeading?.

We should also allow a NumberedHeading?, which coupled with AnchoredHeading?, leads to a TableOfContents. -- SunirShah

The following seems fairly intuitive for numbered headings:

 == # heading

Should we turn this on for MeatballWiki? Personally, if we can downshift the heading level, I think it would be useful to try out. The title of the page is really the most important heading on the page, and so it should be the only level one heading. From observing other wikis practicing HeaderSyntax, and other HTML in general, I find having competing level one headers is too visually distracting, especially since level one headers are much larger than level two headers and lower in InternetExplorer. An example of downshifting:

= Level two header =: <h2>Level two header</h2>

== Level three header ==: <h3>Level three header</h3>

=== Level four header ===: <h4>Level four header</h4>

Or possible better, just disallow the level one header.

= Normal text =: =Normal text=

== Level two header ==: <h2>Level two header</h2>

=== Level three header ===: <h3>Level three header</h3>

I'm sure Cliff is really happy to have this requirement now. ;) -- SunirShah

: How about just turning on the feature as-is, including h1 headers. If people abuse the h1 headers, the feature can be turned off or modified at that time. --CliffordAdams

That would make sense too. ;) --ss

PhpWiki currently uses the following syntax (the exclamation marks have to be the first character on the line):

! Level three header

!! Level two header

!!! Level one header

Example:

= Header1

== Header2

=== Header3

[WakkaWiki] uses the following syntax :

====== Level one header ======

===== Level two header =====

==== Level three header ====

=== Level four header ===

== Level five header ==

In fact, this syntax refers to Really big header, Rather big header, Medium header, Medium header, Not-so-big header and Smallish header. The user may easily understand such words than "level one header".

Here's a link (http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/RfcModifiedTWikiHeadingMarkup) to a page on TWiki where I discuss the usefulness (for me, at least) of a markup that is the same length for all heading levels and with the heading level explicity included as a number.

The current TWiki heading markup is "---+", "---++", ..., with the number of "+"s denoting the level (up to Level 6, which, IIUC, is a limitation of HTML?).

An example of the markup I'd propose would be "---+1", "---+2", etc. Or anything that meets the two criteria: constant length, and explicit "coding" of heading level.

One consequence of the approaches outlined (excepting [WakkaWiki]) above is that the visual effect in edit mode is exactly opposite of the headers' importance. A level 6 heading has (at least) six times more impact:

====== A minor point ======

= A major point =

This isn't to say not to use the syntax proposed, just consider the limitations.

There is some history of using == and -- under headlines to mark it as a header. For example:

This is a header one
====================

This is a header two
--------------------

This comes from the original SeText standard (from the 80's!) http://docutils.sourceforge.net/mirror/setext.html

More recently, it has been adopted by the StructuredText and ReStructuredText for use in Zope and Plone.

CategoryTextMarkup

HeaderSyntax

InfiniteMonkey model

Discussion