 | ||
Wiki markup, also known as wikitext language and wikicode, is a lightweight markup language used to write pages at wiki-based websites (such as Wikipedia) that is a simplified/alternative/intermediate to HTML. Its purpose is to be converted by wiki software into HTML, which, in turn, is served to web browsers. It was created in 1995 to format pages on the original wiki site, WikiWikiWeb.
Contents
There is no commonly accepted standard wikitext language. The grammar, structure, justification, keywords and so on depend on the particular wiki software used on the particular website.
Different Wiki programs may support use of different sets of HTML elements within wikitext. In some cases, permitted HTML elements may be configured by individual wiki sites. MediaWiki supports many common HTML tags.
Free linking
All wikitext markup languages have a simple way of hyperlinking to other pages within the site, but there are several different syntax conventions for these links. Many wikis, especially the earlier ones, used CamelCase to mark words that should be automatically linked. In MediaWiki, this convention was replaced with the [[…]] notation, which Wikipedia calls "free links".
Standardization
Creole is an effort for a "common wiki markup language to be used across different Wikis". There are several wiki engines that have implemented Creole. Version 1.0 of the specification was released in July 2007. It is not supported by MediaWiki.
Visual editing
VisualEditor is a more user-friendly online rich-text editor and an alternative to editing the raw wiki markup source code. VisualEditor was developed by the Wikimedia Foundation in partnership with Wikia. In 2013, the beta was available for Mediawiki.org and several of the largest Wikipedias. In 2015, VisualEditor was offered to all users of most language editions of Wikipedia.