On Aug 5, 2006, at 8:47 PM, Michel Fortin wrote:
Le 4 août 2006 à 18:43, Michael McCracken a écrit :
On Aug 3, 2006, at 12:53 PM, Michel Fortin wrote:
I agree with this. Calendars can be written in a lot of different
ways, and the output expected will vary depending on the
application. Keeping this separate as an extension to Markdown
seems the best.
Did you mean calendars can be marked up in different ways in HTML,
or that people will want to write different markdown-style syntax
for calendars?
Both. In my view, almost any Markdown-style for calendars is going
to have limitations which will prevent it to suit some peoples
needs. And such limitations are going to be reflected by the lack
of flexibility in the output.
If I'm not mistaken, there are many ways you could format you
calendar events which are all valid hCalendars. For instance, could
you not put all your event data in a table of this form:
| Event | Date | Location
| -------------- | -------------- | ----------------
| Big meeting | 23rd June 2002 | Room 200, Bldg 3
| Bigger meeting | 24rd June 2002 | Room 200, Bldg 3
? Sure you could, with the revealing classes and `<abbr>` elements
put at the right places.
I think the big problem about integration of microformats like
hCalendar (or hCard) is that they are a purely semantic layer
applied over the structural markup. It doesn't mean it cannot or
shouldn't be part of Markdown, but if it does, it probably should
acknowledge that fact and be flexible enough so that authors can
write calendar events the way they want.
OK, I agree here - I was hoping to find a reasonable syntax that
would work for the way many events are written, but maybe there are
just too many different ways to do it.
So this now seems to be a good example for the need for extensible
Markdown syntax, which I'd certainly support, but is more than I
wanted to bite off. :)
I was hoping to start a discussion on what the 'markdown way' to
write calendar entries should be.
I tried to start from what I'd seen in emails, but I was hoping
for some feedback about the syntax I came up with.
Ok. Let me review your proposition, which would transform this:
(23rd June 2002)[Big Meeting @ Room 200, Bldg 3]
(10am-2pm)[World Cup game]
into this:
<div class="vcalendar"><span class="vevent">
<span class="summary">Big Meeting </span>
<abbr class="dtstart" title="23rd June 2002">23rd June 2002</
abbr></span>
<span class="location">Room 200, Bldg 3</span>
</div>
<div class="vcalendar"><span class="vevent">
<span class="summary">World Cup game</span>
<abbr class="dtstart" title="10am">10am</abbr></span>
- <abbr class="dtend" title="2pm">2pm</abbr></span>
</div>
Beside the inflexibility of the output, what I don't like is that a
()[] syntax looks like a span-level syntax, while it produce `<div>`s.
It didn't have to produce divs. That wasn't really a conscious
decision, honestly.
And while it probably is different enough from links in the
parser's eye, it probably has enough similarities to confuse a
beginner.
fair enough.
Also, your repeated "vcalendar" `<div>`s serve no purpose. From the
hCalendar microformat page:
Authors may explicitly use elements with class="vcalendar" to wrap
sets of vevents that all belong to the same calendar
but you're creating a different calendar for each event!
Yes, this is a good point in that it isn't clear where to start and
stop a vcalendar without adding more markup.
Yes, PHP Markdown, the object oriented version I announced a
little while ago, is better suited for extension than John's Perl
Markdown. But there is no "intelligent" way to add a function in
the middle of the processing chain other than by replacing the
caller function, which makes any extension rather inelegant (but
still better than before). Improving PHP Markdown's extension
capabilities is on my todo list.
As far as extension, I think there will probably be a small set of
microformats which could reasonably be included in the core
Markdown syntax (assuming that the Markdown community is
interested in microformats). Specifically, I mean the hCard
contact info and hCal calendar entries.
If it's just two formats, perhaps extension is unnecessary?
(Especially considering that extension support is not present in
current Markdown versions?)
The idea of an extension is that you can build the one *you* need,
and share it with other people who needs it if you want. But it
can't get in the way (or the processing time) of those who do not
have a need for it, or those who aren't satisfied with your version
of the syntax and its corresponding output.
Alright, I'll keep an eye out for a good extension mechanism, then.
I'll be an early customer, I guess.
I think that until we have a clean way of integrating hCalendar or
hCard into various HTML structures from within markdown, it should
probably remain separate.
Thanks,
-mike
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