Shorthand Basics
If you can enter text, you're ready for Foswiki. With a few simple rules, you'll be able to use plain text to create well-styled postings, instantly. What you are going to learn here is called
Topic
Markup
Language, or simply TML. So here comes a fast-track guide to shorthand basics:
General text formatting
- Separate each paragraph with a blank line.
- To display a bold type word or phrase, use asterisks:
*bold type*
.
- To display an italic word or phrase, use underscores:
_italic_
.
- To display bold with italics word or phrase, use double underscores:
__bold italic__
.
- To display a word or phrase in
MONOSPACED TYPE
, use equal signs: =like this=
.
- Use
==double equal signs==
for bold: bold mono
.
- To display colored text, enter:__
%RED% red text %ENDCOLOR% and %GREEN% green text %ENDCOLOR%
to get red text and green text .
-
%<color>%
text must end with %ENDCOLOR%
. If you want to switch from one color to another one you first need to end the active color with %ENDCOLOR%
, e.g. write %RED% some text %ENDCOLOR% %GREEN% more text %ENDCOLOR%
.
- DefaultPreferences defines some commonly used colors: %YELLOW%, %RED%, %PINK%, %PURPLE%, %TEAL%, %NAVY%, %BLUE%, %AQUA%, %LIME%, %GREEN%, %OLIVE%, %MAROON%, %BLACK%, %GRAY%, %SILVER% and %ENDCOLOR%.
- To display headings, type (from the beginning of a line) three dashes (-), from one to six plus signs (+), a space, and your heading text.
- The quantity of plus signs is related to the size of the heading - the more plus signs you use, the smaller the heading.
- You can insert a nested table of contents, generated from headings, by placing
%TOC%
wherever you like on a page (see System.Macros for more %TOC%
options).
Working with special characters (advanced)
- If you want to display angle brackets, enter them as HTML codes instead of typing them in directly:
-
<
= <
>
= >
- You enter:
(a > 0)
Result: (a > 0)
- Sometimes you will not see the
&
character and you need to escape it to see it as it is. The reason behind is that &
has a special meaning in HTML - it starts so called character entities, like '©'
which is the ©
copyright character.
- Type
'This & that'
to get 'This & that'
.
Preventing Macro/variable expansion (advanced)
Place
<nop>
within a
%MACRO%
statement to prevent it from being expanded, as follows:
-
%<nop>MACRO%
, result: %MACRO%
Working with <verbatim>
(advanced)
Although text inside a
<verbatim>
block should be displayed exactly as it is typed (without being expanded), Foswiki does not necessarily ignore it. The following examples show TML that Foswiki will process inside a
<verbatim>
block:
<verbatim>
Example 1:
* Set VARIABLE = This variable may be used as normal, Eg. %VARIABLE%
Example 2:
%STARTSECTION{"section"}%
This section may be used as normal, Eg. %INCLUDE{"WikiSyntax" section="section"}%
%ENDSECTION{"section"}%
Example 3:
%TMPL:DEF{"template"}%
This template definition may be used as normal, Eg. %TMPL:P{"template"}%
%TMPL:END%
</verbatim>
Internal and external links
- To link to another Wiki topic in the same web, type the WikiWord of that topic:
WebHome
. Acronyms will also be linked if the topic exists. See ACRONYM.
- To link to a Wiki topic in a different web, type the name of the web, and a dot, first:
Sandbox.WebHome
.
- A Wiki topic that doesn't exist will appear highlighted, with question mark at the end, prompting you (or someone else) to start that topic by clicking the ?: ExampleOfANewTopic (click the ?, but don't save, to preserve the example!).
- To create an external link, type the full URL:
http://foswiki.org/
.
- To prevent a WikiWord from becoming a link, place
<nop>
or an exclamation mark (!
) in front of the WikiWord: <nop>NoLinkPlease
or !NoLinkPlease
.
- To escape the exclamation mark escape, try prefixing a
<nop>
, e.g. write A <nop>!= B
to get "A != B". Alternatively, use the HTML entity !
, which renders as an exclamation mark, e.g. write A != B
to get "A != B".
Bullet and numbered lists
- To indent with a bullet, enter
[space][space][space][asterisk][space]
.
- Use multiples of 3 spaces to nest bullets.
- To create a numbered list:
- Start items in a numbered list with
[space][space][space][1][space]
.
- The "1" (or any number) will be replaced by a correct numbering order.
- To add a new paragraph without restarting list numbering, use the %BR% variable, like this:
Text added (in a new paragraph)
- and the numbered list continues.
Always start
counting spaces for bullets or numbers from the beginning of a new line.
Others
- To display an image in a topic, attach it and type in edit mode:
%ATTACHURL%/yourimagefilename.jpg
- Three (or more) consecutive hyphens will create a horizontal rule:
---
Follow
GoodStyle recommendations when editing topics. In general, it is always nice to add one's signature at the end of a topic or comments. To add your signature, type
Main.YourName
, it will then expand to
FoswikiGuest.
See
EditingShorthand for the complete set of formatting rules.
Related Topics: WikiWords,
Macros,
EditingShorthand,
FileAttachment