Formatting Rules

Summary Basic Rules for Formatting Text in FlexWiki

Formatting guide from FlexWiki FormattingRules

Wiki formatting is very simple and is based on text with extra little annotations. From plain text you get nice formatting.

Basic Formatting

Simple Text Formatting

Two ticks (' ') for italics

Three ticks (' ' ') for bold

Bang (!) at the start of a line for H1

Bang Bang (!!) at the start of a line for H2

etc. (!!!, !!!!, ...)

Links

Any PascalCased word becomes a link. E.G., ArcInfo

Surrounding a word with square brackets [ word ] will let you do non-[pascalcased] words. Generally this is considered "odd", so you should try to use PascalCased words where possible.

For example thisIsBadForm

Any URL becomes a link (http://www.msn.com).

You can also make arbitrary links using the Textism formatting below.

        As defined above: "arbitrary links":http://www.microsoft.com

Or picture links like this .

        By using this syntax: "http://www.flexwiki.com/images/go.gif":http://www.flexwiki.com

Anchors/Bookmarks

Any WikiPageProperty or HiddenWikiPageProperty (see below) becomes an anchor (or bookmark) on that page. You can reference that anchor by using the <TopicName>#<Anchor> form, e.g. FormattingRules#WikiPageProperty

Lines

Four dashes (- - - -) at the begining of a line gives you an HR

Lists

Starting a line with a tab (or 8 spaces) followed by a star:

item 1

sub item 1
sub item 1

item 2

Ordered lists, a line with a tab (or 8 spaces) followed by a 1.:

item 1

sub item 1
sub item 2

item 2

NOTE You can't nest ordered and unordered lists for now.

Emoticons

All of usual emoticons work (see Instant Messenger for the full inventory).

(y)	(n)	(b)	(d)	(x)	(z)	(6)	:-[	(})	({)

:-)	;)	:(	:\|	:'(	:-$	(H)	:-@	(A)	(L)

(U)	(k)	(g)	(f)	(w)	(p)	(~)	(T)	(t)	(@)

(c)	(i)	(S)	(*)	(8)	(E)	(^)	(O)	(M)

Tables

A line that starts and ends with || is a table row. Cells are divided with ||.

For example:

 ||Containers||(n)||
 ||MIL||(y)||
 ||Managed Code||(b)||
 ||After work||(d)||

Containers
MIL
Managed Code
After work

''See TableFormattingRules for information on advanced table formatting (justification, highlighting, etc.)''

Text Size and Colors

Modeled after PmWiki, more info is here )

Syntax:

 Setting text color: %color% or %#1122AA% (exactly 6 hex chars)
 Setting text size: %big% or %small%
 Combo: %color big% or %small color%
 End of colored/resized text: %% or end of line

Examples:

 Normal %red% red text %% back to normal

Normal red text back to normal

 %red% red text %blue% blue text
 back to normal

red text blue text

back to normal

 %big% big text %small% small text %% back to normal

big text small text back to normal

 %big red%Big red text %blue small% Small blue text

Big red text Small blue text

 %big big%Very big text %% normal again

Very big text normal again

Advanced Formatting

Preformatting or Code

Any line starting with whitespace becomes PRE

 Public Class MyClass
    Public Sub New()
        DoCoolStuff()
        If IsReallyCool Then
            DoSomethingEvenMoreCool()
        End If
    End Sub
 End Class
 public class CSharpExample {
    CSharpExample() {
       int n = 5;
       object[] test = new object[n];
    }
 }

Text inside of a PRE block doesn't get hyperlinks automatically added to it.

Non-indented preformatted text (available in builds starting from 1.8.0.1614)

It is difficult to cut&paste source files into Wiki and then insert 1 space before every line. PRE block solve this problem. There are 2 usage scenarios:

Simple Syntax:

{@
your text goes
here and it does not have to start with space or tab
}@

Produces:

your text goes
here and it does not have to start with space or tab

Syntax with key (if for some reason your text contains }@ at the beginning of a line)

{@UniqKey
any text
here including
}@ at line beginning
still inside pre
}@WrongKey
still inside pre
}@UniqKey

Produces:

any text
here including
}@ at line beginning
still inside pre
}@WrongKey
still inside pre

Images

To put in an image, just link to an external URL that ends in jpeg/gif/jpg:

 http://www.sqldts.com/Images/sqlislogocircled.gif

:ExternalWikis:

External Wiki References

To reference a topic on an external wiki (that is a topic not from this website), you add (anywhere before the link)

 @siteName=http://myserver/mywiki/default.aspx/$$$

Then, anywhere after that you can use

 TopicName@siteName

The casing of "siteName" is arbitrary, there are no restrictions. Also, you can create a topic called ExternalWikis which will be loaded for every topic, allowing for a "header file" of common external wikis.

The $$$ in the definition URL will be replaced with the topic name provided.

Textile formatting

http://www.textism.com/tools/textile/index.html

 text: _emphasis_
 text: *strong* 
 text: ??citation?? 
 text: -deleted text- 
 text: +inserted text+ 
 text: ^superscript^ 
 text: ~subscript~ 
 text: @code@ 
 text: "this is a link (optional tooltip)":http://www.microsoft.com

Which renders:

text: emphasis
text: strong
text: citation
text: ~~deleted text~~
text: inserted text
text: ^superscript
text: _subscript
text: code
text: this is a link

Delete

To delete any page, just edit the page to contain only the word "delete".

Undelete

To get back any page that has been deleted, navigate to the page (it will look like a new page at this point) and just save the page. You will then see the version history pane (which includes versions before the page was "deleted"). Restore the one you want and breathe a sigh of relief.

Properties

For a list of properties used here on SQLI Wiki see PageProperties. See also WikiPageProperty and ExamplePropertyPage

Escaping

If you want to prevent TopicNames from being linked, you can use the double-quote escape: surround the text with a pair of double-quotes on each side and you'll prevent the formatter from turning these into links. This also works for most other run-level formatting (e.g., bold, italic, URL linking, etc.). For example, NormallyThisWouldBeLinked and '''this would be bold'''. You get that with:

 ""NormallyThisWouldBeLinked"" and ""'''this would be bold'''""

Render as:

NormallyThisWouldBeLinked and '''this would be bold'''