[Phpwiki-talk] RFC - markup changes for list items.

[Neil B. <ne...@cs...>]

Hi,
 I would like comments on a couple of changes that I would like for
 handling of list items.

 I like using lists a lot, and it bothers me that a single list item
 must currently be entirely on one line.
 I find this particularly irksome when editing in the netscape
 <textarea wrap="virtual">  box, you cannot visually distinguish
 between a wrapped line and two lines where the second is not
 indented.

 So, I would prefer that list items could continue onto multiple
 lines.
 I have implemented a change that achieves this and it works quite
 well.  When transform.php finds a line that starts with normal text,
 it just includes it in the current context.  To terminate a list, you
 just need a blank line, and this feels quite natural.

 This change is not backwards compatible and would need to be
 considered carefully, but I think that it is for the good.  After
 all, paragraphs can be continued on the next line, why not paragraphs
 within lists.


 My other change is along the same lines, but a bit more interesting.

 I would like to be able to have multiple paragraphs within a list
 item.  
 I have implemented this by interpreting a single blank line as a
 paragraph break at the current level, and a double blank line as an
 end-of-list marker.
 This allows me to have multiple paragraphs in lists, but it has
 turned out in practice to be a bit awkward.  It is easy to forget the
 two blank lines that are needed to end a list.
 My thought is to add a new markup which means "paragraph break at
 this level", and leave the blank line meaning "break out of any list
 context".

 The question is, what should the new markup be?

  1/ ";;;" is currently line break, so maybe ";;;;" could be new-para,
      but it is kind of ugly
  2/ "." on a line by itself or at the start of a line might be good
      as it is visually similar to the required concept:

       .A dot at the start of 
       a line makes that line
       intent slightly. 
       .This is just what happens
       at the start of a paragraph
       in some formating style.

  Does anyone know if there is any precedent in other wikis?


  Somewhat related to this, consider the lists in TextFormattingRules.
  They look like a nicely spaced unordered lists.  But if you look at
  the generated html, you will find that there are not.  That are
  actually sequences of singleton lists.  If you chose to make them
  ordered lists, you would find that every item is number '1'.
  If we want to be able to provide nice spacing in lists, maybe
  defining "." as a local paragraph break would be a good way to
  achieve this.

You comments appreciated,
NeilBrown