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In lugnet.admin.general, Chris Moseley writes:
> Todd Lehman wrote in several messages ...
> > Member pages on LUGNET will initially be text-based. • ...
> > I'm lookin' for something simple, pretty, and intuitive -- something like
> > this, or better:
> > Hi, my name is Ed Boxer and I {really} love [Opera], [LEGO®], and
> > [Boxing]!
>
> [Todd], {I} must have (missed the start <of this>, but why)? _All_ you're
> doing is (forcing) people l{i}ke me to write <[pre>-processors] to remove
> the [garbage] that (you{'}<ve)> let (l)users add. *_And*_ some "text" will
> become unprintable (<DOS: [dir ([filespec])*]>, _for instance_) without
> _escape chars_. *I* [have to say] that *I* find things like (this) paragraph
> pretty [unreadable]. And if you translated it to HTML is would not markedly
> improve, I venture.
LOL!!!
OK, I shouldn't've crossposted to .off-topic.geek without giving a link (with
that weird URL thing I do) to the top-level node in the thread, explaining
what this was all about. Here's that:
http://www.lugnet.com/admin/general/?n=1977
BTW, one clean way to do lines like your filespec example is to mark pre-
formatted and unencoded text (like code chunks, for instance) with a
vertical bar followed by a space in column 1. So your paragraph above
could be written thusly:
---begin---
[Todd], {I} must have (missed the start <of this>, but why)? _All_ you're
doing is (forcing) people l{i}ke me to write <[pre>-processors] to remove
the [garbage] that (you{'}<ve)> let (l)users add. *_And*_ some "text" will
become unprintable...
| <DOS: [dir ([filespec])*]>
...without _escape chars_. *I* [have to say] that *I* find things like (this)
paragraph pretty [unreadable]. And if you translated it to HTML is would not
markedly improve, I venture.
---end---
And (chuckle) *of course* you're going to find that paragraph pretty
unreadable, because no one in their right mind would mark up text that
insanely much, and of course it'll not be a marked imrovement as HTML.
Heh heh, funny guy. :) At least it's still semi-understandable in the
above markup. Here's how awful it looks in HTML, anyway (with attempted
guesses at what you meant by < > and _):
---begin---
<B>Todd</B>, <I>I</I> must have (missed the start <A HREF=
"http://www.lugnet.com/admin/general/?n=2108">of this</A>, but why)?
<U>All</U> you're doing is (forcing) people l<I>i</I>ke me to write
<<B>pre>-processors</B> to remove the <B>garbage</B> that
(you<I>'</I><ve)> let (l)users add. *<U>And*</U> some "text" will
become unprintable... <CODE><DOS: [dir ([filespec])*]></CODE>
...without <U>escape chars</U>. *I* <B>have to say</B> that *I* find things
like (this) paragraph pretty <B>unreadable</B>. And if you translated it to
HTML is would not markedly improve, I venture.
---end---
I'd hate to see that on the screen. :)
> Note: This bit "(<DOS: [dir ([filespec])*]>, _for instance_)" without the
> font chars is "(DOS: dir [filespec]*, for instance)".
>
> I guess what I'm saying is that any format can be mangled, the trick is to
> make it hard to mangle. Either by cutting features, or choice of control
> chars. Since this is 'net, I suggest either allowing only a micro-HTML
> subset (like P,B,I,U and perhaps UL), or using something a little odd as
> an escape character to control formatting. Using different brackets is not,
> IMO, that. If you're using escapes it's probably better to use optional
> explanatory text: |bold|THIS IS SHOUTING| is the same as |b|SHOUTING|,
> and make two escapes the escape character.
>
> I personally tend to say that most users will be either geeks, or confused.
> There's a fairly small subset of "other" who will be able to learn a simple
> interface *and* will be prepared to RTFM in order to do so. Having played
> on FIDONET and early HTML, I expect that subset to be drowned out by the
> "confused" group asking FAQ.
"Confused" people really won't need to use anything other than just plain
paragraph-based text. For them, boldface and italics will be an advanced
feature.
--Todd
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