PmWiki

Wiki Styles

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authors (basic)

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Wiki style basics

Wiki styles allow authors to modify the color and other styling attributes of a page's contents. A wikistyle is written using percent-signs, as in %red% or %bgcolor=lightblue%.

Text color and font

The most basic use of wiki styles is to change text attributes such as color, background color, and font. PmWiki defines several wikistyles for changing the text color to %black%, %white%, %red%, %yellow%, %blue%, %gray%, %silver%, %maroon%, %green%, %navy%, and %purple%. 

The basket contains %red% apples, %blue%
blueberries, %purple% eggplant, %green%
limes, %% and more.

The basket contains apples, blueberries, eggplant, limes, and more.

For colors other than the predefined colors, use the %color=...% wikistyle. (Note: RGB colors (#rrggbb) should always be specified with lowercase letters to avoid WikiWord conflicts.) 

I'd like to have some %color=#ff7f00%
tangerines%%,  too!

I'd like to have some tangerines, too!

To change the background color, use %bgcolor=...% as a wikistyle: 

This sentence contains %bgcolor=green
yellow% yellow text on a green
background.

This sentence contains yellow text on a green background.

See Wiki Style Colors for more color help.

Text justification

Styles are used to control the text justification 

%center% This text is centered. 

%right% Right justified.

This text is centered.

Right justified.

and to create floating text: 

%rfloat% This text floats to the right

%rframe% floats to the right with a
frame

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer
sadipscing elitr

This text floats to the right

floats to the right with a frame

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer sadipscing elitr

Scopes

Wikistyles can also specify a scope; with no scope, the style is applied to any text that follows up to the next wikistyle specification or the end of the paragraph, whichever comes first. The apply= attribute and its shortcuts allow to change the scope as follows:

apply attributeshortcutstyle applies to...
%apply=img ...%-any image that follows
%apply=p ...%%p ...%the current paragraph
%apply=pre ...%-the current preformatted text
%apply=list ...%%list ...%the current list
%apply=item ...%%item ...%the current list item
%apply=div ...%-the current div
%apply=block ...%%block ...%to the current block, whether it's a paragraph, list, list item, heading, or division.

thus %p color=blue% is the same as %apply=p color=blue%, and %list ROMAN% is the same as %apply=list list-style=upper-roman%.

Some predefined style shortcuts also make use of apply, thus %right% is a shortcut for %text-align=right apply=block%.

Example: Apply a style to a paragraph: 

%p bgcolor=#ffeeee% The wikistyle specification at the beginning of this
line applies to the entire paragraph, even if there are %blue% other
wikistyle specifications %% in the middle of the paragraph.

The wikistyle specification at the beginning of this line applies to the entire paragraph, even if there are other wikistyle specifications in the middle of the paragraph.

Wiki styles can also be applied to tables and table directives: 

||class="green"
style="font-style:italic; border:1px
solid blue; background-color:#ffffcc"
||Everything after the above line is
styled with green italic text, ||
|| ||
||This includes ||
||    preformatted text ||
||* lists ||
||-> indented items ||
Everything after the above line is styled with green italic text,
 
This includes
preformatted text
* lists
-> indented items
(:table class="green"
style="font-style:italic; border:1px
solid blue; background-color:#ffffcc":)
(:cellnr:)
Everything after the above line is
styled with green italic text,

This includes
    preformatted text
* lists
-> indented items
(:tableend:)

Everything after the above line is styled with green italic text,

This includes 

    preformatted text
  • lists
indented items

The >>style<< block can be used to apply a wikistyle to a large block of items. The style is applied until the next >><< is encountered. 

>>blue font-style:italic
bgcolor=#ffffcc<<
Everything after the above line is
styled with blue italic text,

This includes
    preformatted text
* lists
-> indented items
>><<

Everything after the above line is styled with blue italic text,

This includes 

    preformatted text
  • lists
indented items

The (:div style:) works in almost the same way as >>style<<, but the style information is encapsulated in a style="" attribute and nested div blocks are possible. 

(:div class="green"
style="font-style:italic; border:1px
solid blue; background-color:#ffffcc":)
Everything after the above line is
styled with green italic text,

This includes
    preformatted text
* lists
-> indented items
(:divend:)

Everything after the above line is styled with green italic text,

This includes 

    preformatted text
  • lists
indented items 
(:div1 style="font-style:italic;
background-color:#ffffcc":)
outer style
(:div2 style="color:red;
background-color:lightblue":)
nested style
(:div2end:)
again outer style
(:div1end:)

outer style

nested style

again outer style

Caveat: An applied wikistyle will only take effect if it's on the line that starts the thing it's supposed to modify. In other words, a wikistyle in the third markup line of a paragraph can't change the attributes of the paragraph: 

after the first line of the paragraph,
we try to %apply=p color=blue% change
color.
This does't work because the style comes

after the first line of the paragraph, we try to change color. This does't work because the style comes 

However, this %p color=red% paragraph
''will'' be in red because its block
style does
occur in the first line of its text.

However, this paragraph will be in red because its block style does occur in the first line of its text. 

* Here's a list item
* %list red% Oops, too late to affect
the list!
  • Here's a list item
  • Oops, too late to affect the list!

Wikistyle attributes

The style attributes recognized within a wikistyle specification are: 

    ------------ CSS -------------          --HTML--
    color               bgcolor             class 
    background-color    margin              id
    text-align          padding             hspace
    text-decoration     border              vspace
    font-size           float               target
    font-family         list-style          rel
    font-weight         width*              accesskey
    font-style          height*             value
    display

    Special: define, apply

The attributes in the first two columns correspond to the cascading style sheet (CSS) properties of the same name. The attributes in the last column apply only to specific items:

  • class= and id= assign a CSS class or identifier to an HTML element
  • target=name opens links that follow in a browser window called "name"
  • rel=name in a link identifies the relationship of a target page
  • accesskey=x uses 'x' as a shortcut key for the link that follows
  • value=9 sets the number of the current ordered list item

* The width and height attributes have asterisks because they are handled specially for <img .../> tags. If used by themselves (i.e., without anything providing an "apply=" parameter to the wikistyle), then they set the 'width=' and 'height=' attributes of any <img ... /> tags that follow. Otherwise, they set the 'width:' and 'height:' properties of the element being styled.

Enabling Styles

Styles not listed above can be enabled by a PmWiki Administrator by modifying the local/config.php file. For instance to enable the "line-height" style attribute add the line

$WikiStyleCSS[] = 'line-height';

to the local/config.php file.

Custom style shortcuts

The define= attribute can be used to assign a shorthand name to any wikistyle specification.\\ This shorthand name can then be reused in later wikistyle specifications. 

%define=box block bgcolor=#ddddff
border="2px dotted blue"%

%box% [@some sort of text@]

%box font-weight=bold color=green%
[@some sort of text@]

some sort of text

some sort of text

Tip: It's often a good idea to put common style definitions into Group Header pages so that they can be shared among multiple pages in a group. Or, the wiki administrator can predefine styles site-wide as a local customization (see Custom Wiki Styles).
Tip: Use custom style definitions to associate meanings with text instead of just colors. For example, if warnings are to be displayed as green text, set %define=warn green% and then use %warn% instead of %green% in the document. Then, if you later decide that warnings should be styled differently, it's much easier to change the (one) definition than many occurrences of %green% in the text.
Tip: Any undefined WikiStyle is automatically treated as a request for a class, thus %pre% is the same as saying %class=pre%.

Predefined style shortcuts

PmWiki defines a number of style shortcuts.

  • Text colors: black, white, red, yellow, blue, gray, silver, maroon, green, navy, purple (shortcut for %color=...%)
  • Justification: %center% and %right%
  • Images and boxes
    • Floating left or right: %rfloat% and %lfloat%
    • Framed items: %frame%, %rframe%, and %lframe%
    • Thumbnail sizing: %thumb%
  • Open link in new window: %newwin% (shortcut for %target=_blank%)
  • Comments: %comment% (shortcut for %display=none%)
  • Ordered lists: %decimal%, %roman%, %ROMAN%, %alpha%, %ALPHA% (see also Cookbook:OutlineLists)

Examples

Wiki Style Examples contains a number of examples of ways to use wikistyles in pages.

Known Issues

  • Percents in style definitions (like: %block width=50% %) require the use of "pct" instead of "%".
  • If you specify multiple values for an attribute, like border="2px solid blue" make sure you place the values in quotes.
  • Be sure to use lowercase letters for red-green-blue hex colors, %color=#aa3333% will work, %color=#AA3333% may not.

See Also

< Table directives | Documentation index | Wiki style examples >


This page may have a more recent version on pmwiki.org: PmWiki:WikiStyles, and a talk page: PmWiki:WikiStyles-Talk.