text formatting: links, smileys, etc..

This page lists the special formatting and facilities which are available in every comment / post / message box on the system:

(in this section, what you should type in the text box is shown like this)

Text is generally rendered so that "you get what you give", in a very simple way. If you supply text with fixed line breaks (as in poetry), you will get fixed line breaks. If you supply word-wrapped text, you will get word-wrapped text. If you supply blank lines, you will get blank lines.

Formatting has been kept to a minimum, for simplicity, and is optimized for standard (plain) text. Most of the keyboard symbol characters which are not normally found in text have special meanings:

• [ link ] square brackets indicate a link
• :-) certain unusual combinations of keys will give a smiley icon
• < quote > angle brackets enclose quotations
• == lines containing 2 or more = or - or + or _ indicate that the previous line is a header
• | separators indicate a table
• - hyphen at the start of a line indicates a bullet point or list item, but can also be used in the normal way as a hyphen
• # hash at the start of a line indicates a numbered list item
• _ underscore indicates underline style - eg _underlined gives underlined
• ~tilde indicates italics style
• ^ hat indicates bold style
• * asterix indicates strong style
• + plus indicates big style
• % percent indicates small style, but can still be used in the normal way as in 100%
• #,_,~,^,*,+,% at the start of a line, followed by a space, gives that style for the whole line. You may use several of these characters together, for combined styles.
• ) at the start of a line, followed by a space, centers the text
• { pre-formatted } curly brackets (a.k.a. braces) enclose text where standard formatting doesn't apply, such as computer code

Where any of these characters are required as themselves in your text, you can include them within braces as pre-formatted text. Style characters can also be used as themselves by putting spaces before and after them.

The formatting allows text to be easily cut and pasted from other sources, with minimal conversion required. Text can thus be pre-prepared in plain text, and it will generally look sensible and readable in that plain text form.

[345] where 345 is the page id (the number in the url)

or [345 link text]

or [http://blah.com/whatever link text]

or just http://whatever.com

• smile :) or :-)
• laugh :D or :-D
• razz :P or :-P or :p or :-p
• rage :C or :-C or :c or :-c
• wink ;) or ;-)
• indifferent :I or :-I or :| or :-|
• rolleye 8-)
• confused :/ or :-/ or :Q or :-Q
• question :?
• exclaim :!
• sad :( or :-(
• cry :'(
• shocked :O or :-O or :o or :-o
• evil ]:) or ]:-) or ]-)
• cool B) or B-)
• love :X or :-X or :x or :-x or []
• innocent O:) or O:-)
• blush :* or :-*

use &lt; and &gt; to quote text, like this:

&lt;this is quoted text&gt; gives this is quoted text

With this method, you can quote several lines or paragraphs together.

Another method is to start a line or paragraph with &gt;:

&gt;this is quoted text

will give

this is quoted text

This quotes only the immediate line or paragraph following the &gt;.

Headers are created by putting two or more identical characters in the line beneath the required heading. There should be no other characters on such lines.

header
**
content

creates a new section named header and containing the following content when the text is saved. This allows you, for example, to create an article with several sections from one pasted piece of text.

sub-heading-1
==

gives:

sub-heading-1

sub-heading-2
--

gives:

sub-heading-2

sub-heading-3
++

gives:

sub-heading-3

sub-heading-4
__

gives:

sub-heading-4

start line with | and separate the columns with |

|A|B|C
|one|two|three

will look like this:

A	B	C
one	two	three

start each item line with - or #

- item 1
- item 2
- item 3

gives:

• item 1
• item 2
• item 3

# item 1
# item 2
# item 3

gives:

1. item 1
2. item 2
3. item 3

You can nest lists within lists, using indentation (spaces before the start character).

character	effect
_	underline
~	italic
^	bold
*	strong
+	big
%	small

style whole lines or paragraphs by starting them with style characters:

_ underlined paragraph gives:
underlined paragraph

~ italic para :
italic para

^ bold para :
bold para

* strong para :
strong para

+ big para :
big para

% small para :
small para

+* big and strong combined :
big and strong combined

style individual words by prefixing them with style characters:

style one word like +this or +this+ :
style one word like this or this

+^ combine a big bold para with a ~word in italics :
combine a big bold para with a word in italics
+*~ big strong italic para with %small word :
big strong italic para with small word
here are %^small_bold words and +~big_italic words :
here are small bold words and big italic words

you can *style_several_words_by_joining_them_with_underlines :
you can style several words by joining them with underlines

or they can be ^joined^with^styles ~like~this :
or they can be joined with styles like this

every word ^style or ^%style_combination must have a space before it :
every word style or style combination must have a space before it
otherwise they%remain%visible :
otherwise they%remain%visible

* paragraph styles must not have any spaces before them, or we see the style characters rather than the style.

The asterix can still be used conventionally*, as can the % as in 100%.

Any style character: _ ~ ^ * + % can still be used as that character, if it has spaces before and after it.

% * with spaces before and after the asterix, we can still have a conventional footnote (styled small, in this case) :
* with spaces before and after the asterix, we can still have a conventional footnote (styled small, in this case)

{preformatted text here }
displays like this:
preformatted text here

{
we can preformat 
several lines
}

displays like this:

we can preformat 
several lines

you can also use {{ double braces }} or {{{ triple braces }}} so that you can, for example, include braces within the preformatted text, as in:
{{{ def myfunc(): { x=1} }}}
displays like this:
def myfunc(): { x=1}