Writing pages using Wiki-like formatting

Wiki formatted pages provide a facility for marking up plain text with intuitive, human readable formatting that will be converted to XHTML when displayed. The big advantages are that you do not need to learn HTML to produce quite complex results, and that the text you write looks good to the eye even before conversion. It is a real alternative to saving Word files as HTML retaining the ability to edit the resource online.

You should enter basically plain text. There are a number of special characters you can add to insert formatting

Block level formatting

Paragraph blocks are separated by at least one blank line. To add special formatting to a paragraph add one of the following special characters in the first character of the first line of the block followed by a space...

List Formatting

Simple lists can be constructed easily by placing a special character at the start of each line in the list followed by a space. The list is terminated by a blank line. Lists may be freely nested - and nested lists may change list type. Definition list definitions and text types may be freely intermixed to obtain the desired effect. The special characters are as follows...

Nested lists example:

  * First Bullet
  * Second Bullet
  ## nested line 1
  ## nested line 2
  * Third Bullet

Produces:

• First Bullet
• Second Bullet
1. nested line 1
2. nested line 2
• Third Bullet

Inline formatting

Inline formmating allows part of a line to be marked as having a particular style. The special characters used can appear anywhere on a line, but note that the formatting cannot cross lines. Codes are as follows...

Acronyms

Acronym tagging is acheived by placing the acronym in capital letters followed by the description is parenthesis. There must be no space between the acronym and the parenthesis. Example...

HTML(Hypertext Markup Language)
HTML

Hyper Links

Links can be placed in the text and are followed (with no spaces) by the text to be displayed in brackets. Example: http://www.google.com/(Search Now) will be converted to Search Now.

Mail links can be acheived the same way, e.g.,

nobody@example.com(Test User) will be converted to Test User

Moodle Module Links

If you know the Moodle id number (look for ?id=nn at the end of a module address) and the module name, you can link directly to that resource using the syntax:

ModuleName:nn(Description Text)

eg, resource:36(My New Page) forum:10(Jump to forum)

Moodle Picture Links

Inline graphics can be placed on wiki pages. You need to upload the graphic and note its path within the file upload area. The syntax is:

/..path to file..(alt text)

for example, /mypics/graphic.jpg(Staff picture)

Moodle File Links

Very like Picture Links (above), this feature enables links to previously uploaded files to be placed in a wiki page. The syntax is:

file:..path to file(link text)

for example, file:/pdfs/moodle.pdf(Information About Moodle)

Automatic reformating

Many commonly used functions are converted into their XHTML equivalents automatically.. The main ones are as follows...

• HTTP links are converted into active links
• ..., (R), (TM), (C), 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 are all converted to the correct character
• digits x digits converts to correct multiply symbol
• A line starting with at least four dashes is converted into a horizontal line

Spelling Checker (Experimental)

The wiki formatter can be switched into a spell checking mode. Place the following on a line by itself in the text. Everything after this will be checked...

!SPELL:language_code:language_variant

Examples:
!SPELL:en:british
!SPELL:sp

"language_code" should be replaced by the appropriate code (e.g., EN, FR etc), "language_variant" (along with the colon) is optional and can be one of "american", "british", or "canadian" if the language code is EN.

When displayed any unknown words are highlighted and you can see suggestions by holding the mouse over the word

NOTE: spelling uses the pspell libraries. These and the required dictionaries must be present on your server for the spell checker to work. In particular the Windows platform is not supported.