Tiki Formatting

This Blosxom config uses the TikiText formatting plugin. Tiki is a wiki-like formatting markup. It is still in development, but is sufficiently useful as-is.

Block-Level Formatting

Block-Level formatting is set by one or more characters at the start of line followed by a space. Multiple consecutive lines with the same starting format are treated as part of the same block. A block is terminated by at least one blank line. HTML breaks (<br />) are now supported inside of paragraphs and blockquotes.

Paragraph:             (Line without block formatting)
Blockquote:            > 
Preformatted Text:     (space) or (tab)
Code (Block):          % (A special type of PRE section where TikiText is ignored.)
Table:                 | (See the section on Tables for more.)
Headings:              !# (i.e !1, !2, ! alone implies level 1)
Horizontal Line:       ---- (A line with 4+ dashes.)

List Formatting

Like block-level formatting a list is defined by one or more characters at the start of a line. List types cannot be intermixed and definition lists cannot be nested.

Unordered List Item:       *
Ordered List Item:         #
Definition List Item:      ; Definition
                           : Text 

Multiple lines beginning with a : (colon) allows for multiple text definitions to be associated to a definition. For example:

; foo
: A sample name for absolutely anything, like files
: Term of disgust.

For clarity the practice of place the semi-colon and colon on the same line is no longer supported.

Inline Formatting

Inline formatting differs from block-level formatting and lists in that they do not have to start a line. They also tend to mark a smaller piece of data. Inline elements are used within a block of list structure such as a paragraph or blockquote. Inline formatting cannot cross lines.

Strong/Bold:           *hello world*
Emphasis/Italics:      /hello world/
Inserted:              +hello world+
Delete/Strikethrough:  -hello world-
Subscript:             ~hello world~
Superscript:           ^hello world^
Quote:                 "hello world"
Code (short):          %hello world%
Cite:                  @hello world@

Hyperlinking

Like inline formatting the notion for creating a hyperlink cannot cross lines. URLs (the text following the colon) can be an external, absolute, relative reference. (TikiText takes in everything after the colon until the first space and use that string for the href.)

Hyperlink:	[Text to link]:URL 

Images

Simple image insertion is supported in TikiText. In this version only partial functionality has been added. Like the notion for creating a hyperlink, image markers cannot cross lines. URLs (the text following the colon) can be an external, absolute, relative reference. (TikiText takes in everything after the colon until the first space and use that string for the href.)

Image:	{Some sample alternate text}:IMG-URL 

Acronyms

Authors can create acronym tagging in TikiText and are encouraged to do so. TikiText will scan for words in all capitals followed immediately (no space) by parenthesis with the full description contained.

Acronym: ACRONYM(The description of ACRONYM)

Tables

TikiText supports basic tables. All table blocks begin with the | (pipe) character. Each line is a row. Columns are also seperated by the pipe character. All rows should end with a pipe character. Table headers, cell aligns and columns spans are supported. Nested tables are not support nor are row spans.

|                     Column seperator.
|!                    All cells in this row are headings.
|<                    Left justify this cell.
|^                    Center this cell.
|>                    Right justify this cell.
|(span)||             A column span. (The last cell is spanned over blank 
                       cells that follow.)

Leading and trailing whitespaces in each cell are ignored. This way authors have the option to make tables more readable without being parsed. This assumes the author is using a fixed-width font. For example this TikiText…

|!heading 1|heading 2|heading 3|
|< left    |^ center |> right  |
|^ centered across 3 columns |||

…would produce the following table:

	<table>
	<tr>
	<th>heading 1</th>
	<th>heading 2</th>
	<th>heading 3</th>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	<td align="left">left</td>
	<td align="center">center</td>
	<td align="right">right</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	<td align="center" colspan="3">centered across 3 columns</td>
	</tr>
	</table> 

Automated Functions

TikiText also provides several automated features for convenience that are derived from the semantic structure of the input and standard best practices.

• TikiText will UTF8 encode all output.
• TikiText will generate and inserts named links for each heading.
• TikiText will autolink URLs. The list of recognized protocols is taken from RFC 1630: Universal Resource Identifiers in WWW though it excludes the file protocol
• TikiText will autolink email addresses and apply some basic spambot protection.
• TikiText will convert symbols usually commonly represented using multiple character * to their typographic equivalants. (See Typographic Conversions.)

Typographic Conversions

TikiText will convert symbols usually commonly represented using multiple character to their typographic equivalants similar to John Gruber's SmartPants plugin for MovableType. The following is a list of multi-character representations and their numeric entity equivelents TikiText will convert.

--                                 (em dash)
- (spaces on either side)          (en dash)
...                                (horizontal ellipsis)
(R)                                (registered tademark)
(TM)                               (trademark symbol)
(C)                                (copyright symbol)
1/4                                (fraction one-fourth)
1/2                                (fraction one-half)
3/4                                (fraction three-fourths)
(digets) x (digets)                (multiply sign)

Wiki Word Links

In addition to TikiText, Wiki-style links are supported. To link to another post, refer to the post by name, surrounded by [[ ]] (brackets), like this:
[[tikiformatting]] == tikiformatting

In addition, InterWiki links are supported the same way, like this:
[[Google:toilet Relief]] == Relief
and this:
[[ISBN:B0000683DH Khan!]] == Khan!

The list of all supported InterWiki links is on the InterWiki links page.

Emoticons

The following emoticon images are available. Hover over each image with the cursor to see the text pattern:

Not Supported

This is a list of formatting that IS NOT supported by TikiText. Some of this unsupported feature is out of scope. Others are unimplemented features. Please see the the TO DO in the module's embedded documentation for more information.

• div, span, form elements, or the use of class="" to name few.
• Mid-word inline formating.
• Ordered List Item with specific values.