I'm missing why you wouldn't want to just implement this as code (in C or Javascript) that can translate from fossil wiki markup to markdown markup (or whatever) and back.
That way everyone could use whatever markup language they want, but someone using "pure" fossil would not have to care. No compatibility worries, as the existing format would continue to be the canonical back end format. This is certainly possible, c.f. pandoc and esp. wiky. This wouldn't even need to be included in fossil at all; it many ways I think it would make more sense as a universally usable web browser plugin and/or greasemonkey script. If there is a decision to change the format, my suggestion would be to just copy Mediawiki syntax verbatim; for me 80% of the reason to change would be so people wouldn't have to learn/remember yet another wiki format, and as mentioned in another thread Mediawiki has overwhelming market dominance (and also no patent / copyright / freedom issues with implementing its syntax as far as I am aware). Things that are really close to but not exactly mediawiki syntax I think might be even worse than the current situation, since it would be really easy to use creole by accident in mediawiki and mediawiki syntax by accident in fossil. IMHO markdown is just totally awful, but I'm uninterested in discussing why I think that at all; I'm only mentioning it to possibly add another data point to the "silent majority love markdown" type arguments. Jeremy Cowgar wrote: > Not at all as Markdown, Creole or Textile all look great as plain text. Those > without the plugin will simply not have glorified HTML markup but they will > still be able to participate. However, I only mentioned this option as some > think proper wiki formatting is too much work. My real suggestion would be > for fossil to adopt 1 major format as the format to use. Those that wish to > use verbose HTML can still do so. Those that wish to have a nice formatting > language that's easy to maintain/type/read/understand can use the formatting > engine. > > No one looses. I'm failing to see how such an addition is generating such a > vocal attack by a few. > > It has been mentioned that there will be complaining and arguing to what > format to choose and yet there has been none, only those who dislike a format > making assumptions as to what will happen. > > Jeremy > > > From: Michael Richter > Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 9:36 AM > To: fossil-users@lists.fossil-scm.org > Subject: Re: [fossil-users] The case for Markdown (yes, I rtfm) > > > And with this you lose the interoperability of Fossil repositories. > > Go team. > > > 2009/11/29 Jeremy Cowgar <jer...@cowgar.com> > > For those that would like a real human formatting language it would be worth > a dependency. For those that prefer to use HTML can simply not link in the > library. > > #ifdef MARKDOWN > #include <markdown.h> > #endif > > ... > > #ifdef MARKDOWN > output = ConvertMarkdown(rawText); > #endif > > ... > > $ gcc -DMARKDOWN fossil.c -o fossil > > Pretty easy, eh? Now, that's an over simplification but not by much. > > Jeremy > > -------------------------------------------------- > From: "Eric" <e...@deptj.eu> > Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 6:44 AM > To: <fossil-users@lists.fossil-scm.org> > > Subject: Re: [fossil-users] The case for Markdown (yes, I rtfm) > > > > The number of mails about this just proves that there is no right choice > > for a new wiki markup. There are plenty of lightweight markup formats out > > there (with their own enthusiastic followers) that haven't even been > > mentioned here yet. If you want to do your project documentation a > > particular way, then do it that way - as project files. The other problem > > is introducing external dependencies for Fossil - have you noticed how few > > there are? > > > > My vote (somebody else mentioned votes!) is to leave the Fossil wiki alone > > (except for gradual improvement). > > > > > > Eric _______________________________________________ fossil-users mailing list fossil-users@lists.fossil-scm.org http://lists.fossil-scm.org:8080/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fossil-users
