Announcement: Markdown-0.1 for PmWiki

[Ben Wilson]

Okay, it's pretty alpha, but it is a start. I have published
"Markdown," which is a recipe that helps integrate Markdown syntax
with PmWiki.[1] My goal is that, when finished, there will be
something pretty close to a PHP-based wiki that relies on Markdown
syntax.

I have been involved with PmWiki for a couple years now. It has
matured into a very potent, customizeable wiki engine. PmWiki provides
markup for integrating other pages into a given page, listing pages
based on criteria, and the like--all via fairly elegant wiki markup.

The problem for me was that I use a custom tool to edit my wiki pages.
Specifically, I took notes for law school using a python-based tool
that let me edit using vim (my preferred editor) and publish to the
web. This provides archival and version control. The point is, there
are some pages I have only ever seen using the markup. PmWiki's markup
leaves a few things to be desired. For example, lists are (until
recently) left-flush with multiple markers (i.e. '*' or '#') to
indicate nesting. (A recent "undocumented feature" of PmWiki allows
nested lists provided the are aligned with the first character of the
parent list item.) Also, I prefer the '===' and '---' based headings,
as opposed to PmWiki's '!!' heading markup.

I had earlier mixed the Markdown syntax haphazardly (as opposed to now
which is only hazardly) with PmWiki code, notably the heading syntax
(not the Atx format). That caused problems with the
PageTableOfContents recipe. I generally kept some of PmWiki's markup
and added Markdown's for backward compatibility as well as
compatibility with PmWiki's rich customization library.[2]

It renders blockquotes work nearly as expected (each row prefixed with
'> '), but this recipe does not nest the block quotes (yet). I only
worked on this today after a few earlier abortive attempts, so if
things act a bit screwy, let me know.

[1]: http://pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/Markdown
[2]: http://pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook
--
Ben Wilson
" Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur"