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For Creole 0.4 I'd like to bring out the issue of spaces after the bullets. The current (0.3) draft and previous specs have this ugly special case:

About unordered lists and bold: a line starting with (including optional whitespace before and afterwards), immediately following an unordered list element a line above, will be treated as a nested unordered list element. Otherwise it will be treated as the beginning of bold text. Also note that bold and/or italics cannot span lines in a list._

I think it's ugly and complicates the parser needlessly. Also, many wikis already have very similar list markup, just without this special case -- making them accept both Creole and native markup at the same time would require some sort of a hack (I can't even imagine it currently). One possible way of getting rid of that special case and still keeping list markup unambigous with bold markup is requiring a space after the bullet.

Now, this is a different case than with space before the bullet. There are wiki engines that don't allow space before the bullet, and those that require it -- making it optional is really the only way to make them agree. On the other hand, no wiki engine I know prohibits the space after the bullet. Some require it.

Moreover, putting a space after most punctuation characters is a tradition, and for many people -- a reflex. I can see nothing unnatural in requiring it -- and it simplifies the parsers and the specs -- making Creole both easier to implement and to teach.

For consistency's sake, it would also apply to the numbered lists and indentation (if included) -- that resolves a conflict with #pragma syntax that some wikis use.

We can also drop the requirement of emphasis not spanning lines with this.

Advantages to NOT requiring space after bullet #

  • more user freedom
  • less ongoing user frustration (user will
keep forgetting to add the required space)
  • already in Creole 0.4
  • less keypresses
  • less space taken up by the raw text in
the (possibly narrow) textarea

Advantages to requiring space after bullet #

  • no ambiguity with bold
  • no ambiguity with #pragma or ##comment
  • more readable (and nicer, heh) raw text
  • leaves more space for extending Creole (eg. using different characters for bullets), solves the ambiguity problem once and for all
  • consistent with the tradition of putting a space after punctuation characters
  • consistent with the practice of using at least two characters for markup
  • consistent with the (both default and traditional) presentation
  • already used in thousands of text documents

Also see: EnginesUsingAsterisksForListsAndBold

Visual comparsion #

Without the space #

0         1         2         3         4         5         6         7
01234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam
nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat
volutpat. 
*Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper
suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. 
*Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse
molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at
vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent
luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
*Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil
imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
*Typi non habent claritatem insitam; est usus legentis in iis qui
facit eorum claritatem. Investigationes demonstraverunt lectores
legere me lius quod ii legunt saepius.
*Claritas est etiam processus dynamicus, qui sequitur mutationem
consuetudium lectorum.

Mirum est notare quam littera gothica, quam nunc putamus parum
claram, anteposuerit litterarum formas humanitatis per seacula
quarta decima et quinta decima. Eodem modo typi, qui nunc nobis
videntur parum clari, fiant sollemnes in futurum.

With the space #

0         1         2         3         4         5         6         7
01234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam
nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat
volutpat. 
* Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper
suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. 
* Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse
molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at
vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent
luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
* Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil
imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
* Typi non habent claritatem insitam; est usus legentis in iis qui
facit eorum claritatem. Investigationes demonstraverunt lectores
legere me lius quod ii legunt saepius.
* Claritas est etiam processus dynamicus, qui sequitur mutationem
consuetudium lectorum.

Mirum est notare quam littera gothica, quam nunc putamus parum
claram, anteposuerit litterarum formas humanitatis per seacula
quarta decima et quinta decima. Eodem modo typi, qui nunc nobis
videntur parum clari, fiant sollemnes in futurum.

Formatted #

0         1         2         3         4         5         6         7
01234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam
nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat
volutpat. 
* Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper
  suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. 
* Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse
  molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at
  vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent
luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
* Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil
  imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.
* Typi non habent claritatem insitam; est usus legentis in iis qui
  facit eorum claritatem. Investigationes demonstraverunt lectores
  legere me lius quod ii legunt saepius.
* Claritas est etiam processus dynamicus, qui sequitur mutationem
  consuetudium lectorum.

Mirum est notare quam littera gothica, quam nunc putamus parum
claram, anteposuerit litterarum formas humanitatis per seacula
quarta decima et quinta decima. Eodem modo typi, qui nunc nobis
videntur parum clari, fiant sollemnes in futurum.

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« This particular version was published on 08-Feb-2007 17:15 by RadomirDopieralski.