Textile
Dean Allen calls his Textile “A Humane Web Text Generator.” Let’s pick this apart: a “Web text generator” is something that generates or prepares text for the Web. What, however, does “humane” mean?
“Humane” means that writers shouldn’t have to grapple with HTML. They should be able to use simpler, easier markup instead — which is exactly what Textile offers.
Both Tsure-zure.net and Tawawa.org have Textile built into their respective publishing platforms.
Here’s the Textile markup that you’ll be most likely to use:
Blockquote: bq.
This snippet:
bq. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Donec rutrum est eu mauris. In volutpat blandit felis. Suspendisse eget pede. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos. Quisque sed arcu. Aenean purus nulla, condimentum ac, pretium at, commodo sit amet, turpis.
will generate this block quotation:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Donec rutrum est eu mauris. In volutpat blandit felis. Suspendisse eget pede. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos. Quisque sed arcu. Aenean purus nulla, condimentum ac, pretium at, commodo sit amet, turpis.
Remember that quotations — whether inline or block — are supposed to be unmodified and true to the original. When you quote, make sure you include a link where available.
Numeric list: #
This snippet:
# Tea
# Coffee
# Orange juice
will generate this list:
- Tea
- Coffee
- Orange juice
Bulleted list: *
This snippet:
* Tea
* Coffee
* Orange juice
will generate this list:
- Tea
- Coffee
- Orange juice
Italics: _emphasis_
To italicise a word or phrase, put underscores before and after it.
Boldface: *strong*
To render a word or phrase in boldface, put an asterisk before and after it.
Hyperlink: "linktext":url
This snippet:
"Tawawa":http://www.tawawa.org
will generate this hyperlink:
Image: !imageurl!
This code snippet:
!http://www.tawawa.org/graphics/tanuki440.jpg!
will pull this image into your post:
Using Textile
You can try out all of the above on the Textile page, where you will also find some more markup.
On Tsure-zure.net, Textile is turned on by default, and you will find a list of available markup to the left of the posting area.
If you wish, you can use Textile here on Tawawa as well, thanks to Brad Choate’s Textile Plugin. Once you’re logged in to the Tawawa Kitchen and go to the New Entry page, take a look at the Text Formatting menu at the bottom of the page. It lets you choose between “Convert Line Breaks,” “None,” and “Textile.” The default setting is “Convert Line Breaks,” which doesn’t do much: it only creates the appropriate HTML output when you hit the Return key twice for a fresh paragraph. The “None” setting doesn’t do anything at all: with this setting you have to input all HTML markup by hand (which, incidentally, gives you a great deal of freedom if you know your HTML and want to use some tricky special formatting). The “Textile” setting, obviously, allows you to use Textile markup in your post.
Happy posting!
Comments
kevin :: September 14, 2004
So when using textile to put the image in there with the !http://www.site.com/images/image.jpg! syntaxt, does it also put in the size and width?
I am just asking, because I remember that I learned the one value od adding the lenght and width of the images from you. Namely, that it will set aside space in the page for the image even before it is fully downloaded, otherwise it makes it real hard to read the text. as images are downloading and everything is jumping around the page.
I have played with the textile stuff on my new blog, with Textpattern, but I can’t see the benefit over html. Granted, I already know html. But it seems that even if I didn’t I would have to learn some kind of mark-up. I thought of this as I was trying to teach someone else to use it. I recommended the textile method because I thought it must be easier for new people, but for all the trouble they had I might as well have been teaching them to use HTML.
Rudolf :: September 14, 2004
Hey, I didn’t know you had a Textpattern setup! Got a link?
Josh of Fireland has been singing the praise of Textile for years, and there are some ardent fans of the application on the Textpattern forum. I was like you: I never understood what was so great about it since it’s only one set of markup conventions instead of another.
Then again, the markup for boldface and italics is what you use in e-mail anyway, and lists are a whole lot easier in Textile than in (X)HTML.
Images suck, though: the height and width attributes don’t get added automatically. This surprises me a bit since Dean usually pays very close attention to niggly details like these.
When you upload an image to Textpattern, the user interface (screen grab thereof) gives you a choice between three different tags you can place in your post: Textile, Textpattern and XHTML. I recommend the XHTML tag since it includes the dimension attributes.
I’m not very familiar with Textpattern yet, but I think you can mix and match Textile and XHTML as much as you want to: use Textile for simple text formatting and plonk in a proper (automatically generated) XHTML tag for uploaded images.
kevin :: September 15, 2004
I see you don’t look at my site anymore! I have the link to my textpattern blog on the bastish net.
I actually finally just downloaded MT3 because I will use it for the other people in the class (it still seams a bit easier to use than textpattern, but maybe that’s because I am used to it.
I may switch the sustainability one to MT3 as well…
Ah — you caught me slacking there.
Gomen.
m(_)m
That’s a neat project you’ve started there — don’t get hung up on the “write like a professor” idea; just treat it as a research notes weblog that, hopefully, will engage your readers in a conversation about the issues you raise. Nobody expects weblog entries to be finished academic papers.
Sure, Movable Type is easier to maintain than Textpattern, particularly if you’ve been doing it for a long time. But I don’t think it’s necessarily easier to use from an author’s perspective. Over at Tsure-zure.net I’ve had one contributor who tried to log in at the old place, but nobody reported any difficulties with the interface or the posting procedure.
I never looked closely at the new MT licensing deal — but from what I’ve heard, you won’t be eligible for a free licence if you’ve got several contributors signed up to an install, even if you’re doing an educational project. Are you paying up?
P.S. I forgot to mention that you have to use Textile codes if you want any special formatting in Tsure-zure.net comments. You cannot, for example, use HTML to create a hyperlink.
The link beneath the Tsure-zure.net comment form will remind you of what the codes are.