The Grutatxt markup
===================
This document describes the markup supported by Grutatxt. It's specially
designed to be as _natural_ as possible, so reading a source file should
feel as reading a plain text file. Ideas were taken from conventions used
in pre-web email messages, README files and Wikis.
http://triptico.com/software/grutatxt.html
Text paragraphs
---------------
A text paragraph is any group of lines containing text delimited by one or
more blank lines, provided that none of them beings with a blank space.
So, you just write lines as usual (wrapping or not), and separates
paragraphs as in a word processor.
Headings
--------
A line is understand as a heading if it's immediately followed by another
one that contains only a repetition of a special character (see 'Text
paragraphs' and 'Headings' for an example). There are three heading
levels depending on this special character: if it's a line of = (equal
sign), it's a first level heading, used for titles and tagged with h1 HTML
tags. If it's - (hyphen), it's a second level heading, and if it's ~
(tilde), a third level one. This document shows the three heading levels.
It's suggested that the first level heading is used only once, as it's
magically taken as the title for the HTML page, if one is not overriden as
a command line argument.
Text effects
------------
If some text is surrounded by asterisks, as *this one*, it's marked as
bold (you probably wrote text this way in email to emphasize something).
As well, text surrounded by the _ symbol (underscore), as _this one_, is
marked as italic. Bold can also be marked up surrounding the text with three
apostrophes ('''this way''') and italics with two (''this way''). If you ever
used a WikiWikiWeb system you'll be familiar with these ones.
Other special text is automatically recognized, as URLs (so that the URL
http://triptico.com should be clickable). Text beginning with ./ is
interpreted as relative URLs, so ./index.html should also be clickable.
Grutatxt can also be useful when documenting source code, as function names
like printf() or variables like $username are also highlighted. There are
command line arguments to make the parenthesis and / or leading dollar to
disappear from the output document. Other than the function names and
variables, inline literal texts can be marked up surrounding the text
with a backtick and apostrophe (`like this').
URLs are simply substituted as shown above; if an URL is followed by a
phrase surrounded by parentheses (just like you naturally would do to
explain the contents of a web), this phrase is used as the link text,
as in this example pointing to
http://triptico.com/software/grutatxt.html (the Grutatxt Home Page).
Lists
-----
Grutatxt is powerful rendering lists. There are three types of lists:
unnumbered ones (bulleted), numbered ones and definition lists. They are
recognized as lines starting with a blank (space or tab) immediately
followed by an special character.
* Unnumbered lists start with some blanks, followed by an asterisk,
followed by another blank. If the following lines are space indented,
they are assumed as part of the same list element. The asterisk can
also be a - (hyphen).
* Lists can have multiple levels. To add another level,
* Just indent a bit deeper,
* and have hours of fun
* nesting.
* Numbered lists are marked up almost the same, just by substuting the
asterisk by a # (sharp) or 1 (number one).
* Definition lists are marked up almost the same, but delimiting the
definition term from the definition itself by a colon.
List examples
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unnumbered list:
* First element. Elements at the same level must be indented
by the same number of spaces.
* The second one.
* The second element has one sub-element.
* And another...
* that, itself, has another one
* The third one...
* Has another extremely long sub-element to show that long
ones are rendered correctly. Please note that the elements
of a list cannot be separated by blank lines or they will
be interpreted as different lists.
* The 4th and final one...
* And its final child.
Ordered list:
# First element.
# The second one.
# The second element has one sub-element.
# And another...
# that, itself, has another one
# The third one...
# Has another extremely long sub-element to show that long
ones are rendered correctly. Please note that the elements
of a list cannot be separated by blank lines or they will
be interpreted as different lists.
# And another sub-element, to show this is not a cut & paste
from the unsorted example.
# The 4th and final one. Note also that ordered and unsorted
lists cannot be combined.
Definition list:
* first: the first element
* second: the second element
* third: the third element
Preformatted text
-----------------
A text that should be rendered as is should be written with at least a
blank in the beginning of all lines. This can be an example:
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
/* an example of useless C code */
return 0;
}
If you ever wrote any Perl POD documentation, you'll be familiar with this.
If you write preformatted text and its first line collisions with list
definitions (i.e. text with lines beginning with blanks and an asterisk or
sharp) just insert a line containing only spaces before it.
Cites
-----
If you want to quote a (possibly long) paragraph of text, use a blank
followed by a " (double quote) in its first line, as in the following
example:
"BRAIN, n. An apparatus with which we think what we think. That which
distinguishes the man who is content to _be_ something from the man
who wishes to _do_ something. A man of great wealth, or one who has
been pitchforked into high station, has commonly such a headful of
brain that his neighbors cannot keep their hats on. In our
civilization, and under our republican form of government, brain is so
highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of
office." -- Ambrose Bierce
The leading double quote remains as part of the cited paragraph.
HTML
----
If you need to insert HTML as is (for rendering, say, images or
complicated layouts), you can also do it. Anything between two < symbols
and two > symbols will be passed without any further processing. So, to
insert an image, just do this:
<<
<center>
<img src='http://www.triptico.com/data/themask.jpg' alt="The Mask Cover">
</center>
>>
Passthrough code can also be inline as in << <sup>this</sup> >> example.
Any other HTML outside this boundaries is escaped.
Tables
------
But where Grutatxt is really awesome is rendering tables. They are created
using the `+' (plus) sign for corners, the `-' (hyphen) for horizontal lines
and the `|' (pipe) for vertical lines. So this is a table:
+----------------+----------------------+-----------+
| Band Name | Album Name | Number of |
| | | Songs |
+----------------+----------------------+-----------+
| Dead Can Dance | A Passage in Time | 16 |
+----------------+----------------------+-----------+
| Bel Canto | White-Out Conditions | 10 |
+----------------+----------------------+-----------+
| Depeche Mode | Speak and Spell | 16 |
+----------------+----------------------+-----------+
| Love Spirals | Temporal | 13 |
| Downwards | | |
+----------------+----------------------+-----------+
As you can see, cells with long text inside can span several lines of
physical text, provided that you delimit table rows with a new line
containing only `+' and `-' symbols.
A column can also span several ones, just by marking the intersections
with `|' (pipe) instead of `+' (plus). Look in this example how it's done:
+-----------+-------------+-------------+-----------+
| Head 1 | Head 2 | Head 3 | Head 4 |
+-----------+-------------+-------------+-----------+
| Cell 1-1 | Cell spanning two | Cell 1-3 |
+-----------+-------------|-------------+-----------+
| Cell 2-1 | Cell 2-2 | Cell 2-3 | Cell 2-4 |
+-----------+-------------+-------------+-----------+
| Cell 3-1 | Cell spanning three |
+-----------+-------------|-------------|-----------+
It's not possible to span rows by now.
Separators
----------
A separator line (horizontal ruler) can be inserted by typing four or more
hyphens alone in a line. To avoid being confused with a second level
heading, insert a blank line just before. To the end of this document
there should be a separator, above my signature.
Table of contents
-----------------
Since version 2.0.16, Grutatxt allow the insertion of a table of contents
if the output is HTML. The table of contents can be inserted by including
a <?> mark alone in a line of the text.
----
Angel Ortega <angel@triptico.com>
