[drupal-docs] XHTML in our documentation - Textile, Markdown, ...

[Richard Eriksson]

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:32:55 -0500, Moshe Weitzman <weitzman at tejasa.com> wrote:
> I propose that we ditch HTML authoring and use author using Markdown [1]
> or Textile [2] formats. These formats are easy to learn, and always
> output valid XHTML. Plus, we already have Drupal modules for each. Also,
> I think it will be easier to communicate style rules using one of these
> syntaxes (e.g. "top level headlines begin with **").

-1  

This is a personal reaction more than anything, but having site
maintainer status is usually indicative of a certain level of
proficiency in (X)HTML, and it's bad enough we have to learn a new
markup language on top of the wiki markups that we use on our
individual wikis.  Plus if we have to export the databases or agree on
an OMPL format for import/export, then we have to document the process
for installing the module and telling people who don't know the
"easier" markup languages that they may have to learn yet another
language.  I've used Textile, but only (literally) for unordered
lists.  If we have to look up what the markdown for <h3> is, then ...
why not just wrap headings in <h3> to begin with?

> Dries has long wanted a DocBook like format for our documentation. I
> think Markdown and Textile are like Docbook in that they can be
> converted to any format. But unlike DocBook, they are easily
> comprehended by all.

Possibly true, but as I say above, HTML is a standard and is
understood by those who are involved in the community enough to have
site maintainer status.

-- 
Richard Eriksson
Bryght Community Support
http://support.bryght.com/