Wiki Syntax

One of the reasons that I'm so fond of ikiwiki platform is for its support o markdown. Markdown is a simple, lightweight, markup language that allows you to write in a very simple, human readable format that can quickly be translated into HTML (for output to the web) or to ?LaTeX for output to PDF and paper. The format is derived from common conventions for editing email, so you probably already know how to edit in markdown. There are also converters and plugins for makrdown for nearly all contexts where you'd want it, nearly all of the text editors have markdown plugins, most of the CMSs, and implementations exist in most major scripting languages (ruby, PHP, python, perl).

Check out the sandbox for a display example, the crash course is pretty simple:

• To italicize text enclose text in _ or * which you choose doesn't matter, and is personal preference. (eg. _italics_ or *italics*)

• To bold text enclose the selection in two __ or ** (either). (eg. **bold** or `bold').

• Links are created in the following syntax: [link text](http://domain.tld)

• Wiki links (and this isn't markdown specific, but rather something tacked on for the purposes of the wiki) are created by either:

  • Enclosing the term in double square brackets (<span class="createlink"><a href="http://cyborginstitute.com/wiki/ikiwiki.cgi?page=_&amp;from=contribute%2Fsyntax&amp;do=create" rel="nofollow">?</a> </span>).

  • Using a ?CamelCase word. (Interestingly, in this implementation camelCase and cAmelcAse all point to the same page, but the first two variants are probably preferable).

  That should take care of how to make links, if you still wonder where to "put" pages and how the wiki engine routes links read our page on FileOrganization.

There's more--heading levels for page structure, and an additional format for links--which are at your disposal, but this is page is just meant as a crash course, check out the markdown page, or or the SandBox for more information and examples. I hope the above is enough to get you started.

-- tychoish