Re: Pre-Proposal: Text_Wiki

Paul, I like the idea and your approach seems reasonable to me. Is your intention to make Text_Wiki work with single Wiki pages or/and with a complete set or subset of Wiki pages related to each other? The latter would e.g. create nested sections or chapters in DocBook, but how to do this in XHTML? So I guess, Text_Wiki is only meant for single pages and the rest is up to the application making use of Text_Wiki? Sandro On Friday 18 July 2003 01:17, Paul M Jones wrote: > Hi, all, > > Nicolas Hoizey wrote: > > > I'd like to propose Text_Wiki, a package that [...] allows you > > > to define different source markup rulesets for Wiki text, converts > > > that source to an internal standard, then sends the converted source > > > to an output engine that renders into any number of target formats. > > > > I think you should divide this in several parts: > > > > - one main package that deals with the "internal standard" (which will > > be?) > > > > - other more specific packages that deal with transformation from > > another > > "language" to this standard and/or the other way > > That is exactly the plan, although I will say that I do not intend to > address XMLish source markups at the start -- I think that is more the > domain of XML parsers, not structured text parsers. > > However, I do intend to include at least one XML render class (well, > XHTML) so that Wiki-source can become XHTML. There is no reason that > Wiki sources could not also be rendered into, say, DocBook XML, if > someone writes the appropriate render class. (In fact, this is one of > my driving reasons for Text_Wiki: easy writing of simple documentation > that can be translated to many formats. If doc-writing is trivial, > maybe we'll write more of them; they are sorely, desperately needed for > most projects.) > > To reiterate: the plan is to have one Text_Wiki "master" class handle > the transformation interface in general, with a set of interchangeable > "source/parse" and "output/render" container classes with rulesets for > the specific transformations. > > The "parse" classes parse text conforming to a source ruleset (e.g., > Tavi-style wiki, PHPWiki, SPIP, StructuredText, etc) into a Text_Wiki > meta-standard (an array of meta-keys indicating "bold starts/ends > here", "this is a header", "don't process this", etc., with the > associated text). > > The "render" classes take the meta-standard markup and convert it to > some output format (e.g., XHTML or RTF). The general process is very > similar to the way the Config class does now with reading different > config file formats. > > Good news: Scott Moonen, the originator of Tavi, has given his > approval to the Text_Wiki project, so all the preconditions for > development are in place. I'll post preliminary code and examples when > I have some, and ask for more input at that time. Hell, I'll ask for > more input now: does anybody think this is not a reasonable or workable > plan? > > Finally: can I get some preliminary votes on the package name > "Text_Wiki"? Or is this not the proper time? > > > -- pmj > > > > p.s. If you can, please reply to me personally as well as to the list; > I'm on digest mode and would like to address individual responses > separately if possible. -- pmj