Re: [Phpwiki-talk] Tilde inconsistencies

[Reini U. <ru...@x-...>]

I don't see any inconsistency with the usage of "~" as
escape character, but I see the need to explain it better.
"~ " (tilde space) => <~> and not <space> is the only exception, which 
is not documented, but it is what the user expects.

Ok to add this paragraph to TextFormattingRules?

!!! Character Formatting

* All special HTML characters are displayed as is. Exceptions below.
* See [Emphasis|#Emphasis].
* There's no syntax for font tags or color attributes.
* The tilde '~~' is the _Escape Character_:
** A single tilde '~~' followed by nothing gets rendered as a single 
tilde. => ~
** Two tilde '~~~~' get rendered as a single tilde. => ~~
** A single tilde before a link ('~~http://foo.bar') prevents linking.
    => ~http://foo.bar
** Two tildes before a link ('~~http://foo.bar') produce a tilde
    followed by the hyperlinked URL.
    => ~~http://foo.bar
** A tilde inside an URL gets removed, unless it's formatted inside
    ~[ ~] brackets.
    Two tildes inside an URL (without brackets) become a single tilde.
    => [http://foo.bar/~user] or http://foo.bar/~~user

Please note improvements at 
http://phpwiki.sf.net/phpwiki/TextFormattingRules

We probably have to add a note about special non-ascii or non-latin 
characters, if it's supported by the native CHARSET or not, and how to 
add such chars. (e.g. japanese euc-jp chars to iso-8859-1 wiki's).


Matthew Palmer schrieb:
> Another bug report I've gotten:
> http://bugs.debian.org/227953
> 
> Basically, ~ out by itself is still a tilde, but in contact with anything
> else it's made invisible and will suppress specialness.
> 
> Two problems with this:
> 
> 1) It's inconsistent.  While the rule isn't too hard to follow ("If the
> tilde is touching anything, double it to make it display"), it's a PITA. 
> I'd be inclined to simplify it to "if you want a tilde, type two".
> 
> 2) The method to produce a visible tilde is thoroughly undocumented in
> TextFormattingRules, as far as I can see.  Hence, discovering the rules is,
> pretty much, up to individual experimentation.  See the above-linked bug
> report for a demonstration of one person's experimentation in that area.
> 
> Do others consider the suppression of tildes when they are not used
> immediately prior to a "special" text a bug?  Should the remaining
> exceptions be ironed out, or is it all good as-is and should just be
> documented?
> 
> - Matt
-- 
Reini Urban
http://xarch.tu-graz.ac.at/home/rurban/