Moin Wiki markup overview

This document describes the features of the moinwiki markup language. Because this document was created using Restructured Text, which does not support some of the features available in moinwiki, the examples below may show both the markup and result as block or predefined code.

Features currently not working with moin’s Wiki parser are marked with MOINTODO.

Table Of Contents

Table of contents:

<<TableOfContents()>>

Table of contents (up to 2nd level headings only):

<<TableOfContents(2)>>

Headings

Markup:

= Level 1 =
== Level 2 ==
=== Level 3 ===
==== Level 4 ====
===== Level 5 =====
====== Level 6 ======

Result:

Level 1

Intentionally not rendered as level 1 so as to not interfere with Sphinx’s indexing

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

Level 5
Level 6
Notes:

  • Closing equals signs are compulsory.

  • Also, whitespace between the first word of the heading and the opening equals sign will not be shown in the output (ie. leading whitespace is stripped).

Text formatting

The following is a table of inline markup that can be used to control text formatting in Moin.

Markup

Result

'''Bold Text'''

Bold text

''Italic''

Italic

'''''Bold Italic'''''

Bold Italic

`Monospace`

Monospace

{{{Code}}}

Code

__Underline__

Underline

^Super^Script

Super Script

,,Sub,,Script

Sub Script

~-Smaller-~

Smaller

~+Larger+~

Larger

--(Stroke)--

Stroke

Images and Transclusions

Transclusion syntax is defined as follows:

{{<target>|<optional alternate text>|<optional parameters>}}

{{bird.jpg|rare yellow bird|class=center}}

  • <target> is a relative or absolute URL pointing to an image, video, audio, or web page.

  • <optional alternate text> has several potential uses:

    • Screen readers used by visually impaired users will speak the text.

    • The alternate text may be displayed by the browser if the URL is broken.

    • Search engine crawlers may use the text to index the page or image.

  • optional parameters may be used to resize or position the target.

    • the browser will automatically resize the image to fit the enclosing container by specifying either class=resize or width=100% height=auto

    • Images or other targets can be resized on the client side by specifying an option of width=nn or height=nn where nn is the desired size in pixels.

    • If Pillow is installed on the server, JPEG (or JPG) images can be resized on the server by specifying an option of &w=nn or &h=nn where nn is the desired size in pixels.

    • Images embedded within text can be positioned relative to a line of text by using class=bottom, class=top or class=”middle”.

    • Images displayed as block elements my be floated left or right by using class=”left” or class=right respectively, or centered by using class=center.

Markup

Comment

text {{example.png}} text

Embed example.png inline

text {{example.png||class=top height=96}} text

Embed example.png inline

{{example.png||class=center}}

example.png as centered image

{{https://static.moinmo.in/logos/moinmoin.png}}

example.png aligned left, not float

{{ItemName}}

Transclude (embed the contents of) ItemName

{{/SubItem}}

Transclude SubItem

{{ example.jpg || class=resize }}

browser will automatically resize image to fit the enclosing container

{{ example.jpg || width=20, height=100 }}

Resizes example.png by using HTML tag attributes

{{ example.jpg || &w=20 }}

Resizes example.png by using server- side compression, requires PIL

{{ https://moinmo.in/ || width=800 }}

Resizes the object which is embedded using HTML tags. Here markup like &w=800 will not work.

Extra Info:

Markup like {{ example.jpg || &w=20 }}, simply adds &w to the src URL of the image, the Python Imaging Library (PIL) understands that it has to compress the image on the server side and render as shrinked to size 20.

For markup like {{ example.jpg || width=20, height=100 }} we currently allow only the width and height (anything else is ignored) to be added as attributes in the HTML, however one can, add anything to the query URL using &, like &w in the example above.

Most browsers will display a large blank space when a web page using an https protocol is transcluded into a page using http protocol. Transcluding a png image using an https protocol into an http protocol page displays OK in all browsers.

Blockquotes and Indentations

Markup:

indented text
 text indented to the 2nd level

Result:

indented text

text indented to the 2nd level

Lists

Warning

  • All Moin Wiki list syntax (including that for unordered lists, ordered lists and definition lists) requires a leading space before each item in the list.

  • Unfortunately, reStructuredText does not allow leading whitespace in code samples, so the example markup here will not work if copied verbatim, and requires that each line of the list be indented by one space in order to be valid Moin Wiki markup.

  • This is also an reSTTODO

Unordered Lists

Markup:

* item 1
* item 2 (preceding white space)
 * item 2.1
  * item 2.1.1
* item 3
 . item 3.1 (bulletless)
. item 4 (bulletless)
 * item 4.1
  . item 4.1.1 (bulletless)

Result:

  • item 1

  • item 2 (preceding white space)

  • item 2.1

  • item 2.1.1

  • item 3

  • item 3.1 (bulletless)

  • item 4 (bulletless)

  • item 4.1

  • item 4.1.1 (bulletless)

Note:

  • Moin markup allows a square, white and a bulletless item for unordered lists, these cannot be shown in reST documents.

Ordered Lists

With Numbers

Markup:

1. item 1
  1. item 1.1
  1. item 1.2
1. item 2

Result:

  1. item 1

  1. item 1.1

  2. item 1.2

  1. item 2

With Roman Numbers

Markup:

I. item 1
  i. item 1.1
  i. item 1.2
I. item 2

Result:

I. item 1

  i. item 1.1

  ii. item 1.2

II. item 2

With Letters

Markup:

A. item 1
  a. item 1.1
  a. item 1.2
A. item 2

Result:

  1. item 1

  1. item 1.1

  2. item 1.2

  1. item 2

Specify a Starting Point

When there is a need to start an ordered list at a specific number, use the format below. This works for ordered lists using letters and roman numerals.

Markup:

1.#11 eleven
1. twelve
   i.#11 roman numeral xi
1. thirteen

A.#11 letter K
A. letter J

Result:

11. eleven
12. twelve
   xi.roman numeral xi
13. thirteen

K. letter K
J. letter J

Definition Lists

Markup:

term:: definition
object::
:: description 1
:: description 2

Result:

term

definition

object
description 1
description 2
Notes:

  • reStructuredText does not support multiple definitions for a single term, so a line break has been forced to illustrate the appearance of several definitions.

  • Using the prescribed Moin Wiki markup will, in fact, produce two separate definitions in MoinMoin (using separate <dd> tags).

Horizontal Rules

To create a horizontal rule, start a line with 4 or more hyphen (-) characters. Nine (or more) characters creates a line of maximum height.

Markup:

Text
----
Text

Result:

Text

Text

Tables

Moin wiki markup supports table headers and footers. To indicate the first row(s) of a table is a header, insert a line of 3 or more = characters. To indicate a footer, include a second line of = characters after the body of the table.

Markup:

||Head A ||Head B ||Head C ||
=============================
||a      ||b      ||c      ||
||x      ||y      ||z      ||

Result:

Head A

Head B

Head C

a

b

c

x

y

z

Table Styling

To add styling to a table, enclose one or more parameters within angle brackets at the start of any table cell. Options for tables must be within first cell of first row. Options for rows must be within first cell of the row. Separate multiple options with a blank character.

Markup

Effect

<tableclass=”zebra moin-sortable”>

Adds one or more CSS classes to the table

<rowclass=”orange”>

Adds one or more CSS classes to the row

<class=”green”>

Adds one or more CSS classes to the cell

<tablestyle=”color: red;”>

Add CSS styling to table

<rowstyle=”font-size: 140%; “>

Add CSS styling to row

<style=”text-align: right;”>

Add CSS styling to cell

<bgcolor=”#ff0000”>

Add CSS background color to cell

<rowbgcolor=”#ff0000”>

Add CSS background color to row

<tablebgcolor=”#ff0000”>

Add CSS background color to table

width

Add CSS width to cell

tablewidth

Add CSS width to table

id

Add HTML ID to cell

rowid

Add HTML ID to row

tableid

Add HTML ID to table

rowspan

Add HTML rowspan attribute to cell

colspan

Add HTML colspan attribute to cell

caption

Add HTML caption attribute to table

<80%>

Set cell width, setting one cell effects entire table column

<(>

Align cell contents left

<)>

Align cell contents right

<:>

Center cell contents

<|2>

Cell spans 2 rows (omit a cell in next row)

<-2>

Cell spans 2 columns (omit a cell in this row)

<#0000FF>

Change background color of a table cell

<rowspan=”2”>

Same as <|2> above

<colspan=”2”>

Same as <-2> above

– no content –

An empty cell has same effect as <-2> above

===

A line of 3+ “=” separates table header, body and footer

Table Styling Example

Markup:

||Head A||Head B||
===
||normal text||normal text||
||<|2>cell spanning 2 rows||cell in the 2nd column||
||cell in the 2nd column of the 2nd row||
||<rowstyle="font-weight: bold;" class="monospaced">monospaced text||bold text||

||<tableclass="no-borders">A||B||C||
||D||E||F||

Result:

Head A

Head B

normal text

normal text

cell spanning 2 rows

cell in the 2nd column

cell in the 2nd column of the 2nd row

monospaced text

bold text
A B C
D E F

Verbatim Display

To show plain text preformatted code, just enclose the text in three or more curly braces.

Markup:

{{{
no indentation example
}}}

   {{{{
   {{{
   indentation; using 4 curly braces to show example with 3 curly braces
   }}}
   }}}}

Result:

no indentation example

   {{{
   indentation; using 4 curly braces to show example with 3 curly braces
   }}}

Parsers

Syntax Highlighting

Markup:

{{{#!highlight python
def hello():
   print "Hello World!"
}}}

Result:

def hello():
    print "Hello, world!"

creole, rst, markdown, docbook, and mediawiki

To add a small section of markup using another parser, follow the example below replacing “creole” with the target parser name. The moinwiki parser does not have the facility to place table headings in the first column, but the creole parser can be used to create the desired table.

Markup:

{{{#!creole
|=X|1
|=Y|123
|=Z|12345
}}}

Result:

X

1

Y

123

Z

12345

csv

The default separator for CSV cells is a semi-colon (;). The example below specifies a comma (,) is to be used as the separator.

Markup:

{{{#!csv ,
Fruit,Color,Quantity
apple,red,5
banana,yellow,23
grape,purple,126
}}}

Result:

Fruit

Color

Quantity

apple

red

5

banana

yellow

23

grape

purple

126

wiki

The wiki parser is the moinwiki parser. If there is a need to emphasize a section, pass some predefined classes to the wiki parser.

Markup:

{{{#!wiki solid/orange
* plain
* ''italic''
* '''bold'''
* '''''bold italic.'''''
}}}

Result:

  • plain

  • ‘’italic’’

  • ‘’’bold’’’

  • ‘’’’’bold italic.’’’’’

Admonitions

Admonitions are used to draw the reader’s attention to an important paragraph. There are nine admonition types: attention, caution, danger, error, hint, important, note, tip, and warning.

Markup:

{{{#!wiki caution
'''Don't overuse admonitions'''

Admonitions should be used with care. A page riddled with admonitions
will look restless and will be harder to follow than a page where
admonitions are used sparingly.
}}}

Result:

Caution

‘’’Don’t overuse admonitions’’’

Admonitions should be used with care. A page riddled with admonitions will look restless and will be harder to follow than a page where admonitions are used sparingly.

Variables

Variables within the content of a moin wiki item are transformed when the item is saved. An exception is if the item has a tag of ‘’’template’’’, then no variables are processed. This makes variables particularly useful within template items. Another frequent use is to add signatures (@SIG@) to a comment within a discussion item.

Variable expansion is global and happens everywhere within an item, including code displays, comments, tables, headings, inline parsers, etc.. Variables within transclusions are not expanded because they are not part of the including item’s content.

TODO: Allow wiki admins and users to add custom variables. There is no difference between system date format and user date format in Moin 2, fix code or docs.

Predefined Variables

Variable

Description

Resulting Markup

Example Rendering

@PAGE@

Name of the item (useful for templates)

HelpOnPageCreation

HelpOnPageCreation

@ITEM@

Name of the item (useful for templates)

HelpOnPageCreation

HelpOnPageCreation

@TIMESTAMP@

Raw time stamp

2004-08-30T06:38:05Z

2004-08-30T06:38:05Z

@DATE@

Current date in the system format

<<Date(2004-08-30T06:38:05Z)>>

<<Date(2004-08-30T06:38:05Z)>>

@TIME@

Current date and time in the user format

<<DateTime(2004-08-30T06:38:05Z)>>

<<DateTime(2004-08-30T06:38:05Z)>>

@ME@

user’s name or “anonymous”

TheAnarcat

TheAnarcat

@USERNAME@

user’s name or his domain/IP

TheAnarcat

TheAnarcat

@USER@

Signature “– loginname”

– TheAnarcat

– TheAnarcat

@SIG@

Dated Signature “– login name date time”

– TheAnarcat <<DateTime(…)>>

– TheAnarcat <<DateTime(2004-08-30T06:38:05Z)>>

@EMAIL@

<<MailTo()>> macro, obfuscated email

<<MailTo(user AT example DOT com)

user@example.com OR user AT example DOT com

@MAILTO@

<<MailTo()>> macro

<<MailTo(testuser@example.com)

testuser@example.com, no obfuscation

Notes:

  • @PAGE@ and @ITEM@ results are identical, item being a moin 2 term and page a moin 1.x term.

  • If an editor is not logged in, then any @EMAIL@ or @MAILTO@ variables in the content are made harmless by inserting a space character. This prevents a subsequent logged in editor from adding his email address to the item accidentally.

Macros

Macros are extensions to standard markup that allow developers to add extra features. The following is a table of MoinMoin’s macros.

Markup

Comment

<<Anchor(anchorname)>>

Inserts an anchor named “anchorname”

<<BR>>

Inserts a forced linebreak

<<Date()>>

Inserts current date, or unix timestamp or ISO 8601 date

<<DateTime()>>

Inserts current datetime, or unix timestamp or ISO 8601

<<GetText(Settings)>>

Loads I18N texts, Einstellungen if browser is set to German

<<GetVal(WikiDict,var1)>>

Loads var1 value from metadata of item named WikiDict

<<FootNote(Note here)>>

Inserts a footnote saying “Note here”

<<FontAwesome(name,color,size)>>

Displays Font Awsome icon, color and size are optional

<<Icon(my-icon.png)>>

Displays icon from /static/img/icons

<<Include(ItemOne/SubItem)>>

Embeds the contents of ItemOne/SubItem inline

<<ItemList()>>

Lists subitems of current item, see notes for options

<<MailTo(user AT example DOT org, write me)>>

If the user is logged in this macro will display user@example.org, otherwise it will display the obfuscated email address supplied (user AT example DOT org) The second parameter containing link text is optional.

<<MonthCalendar()>>

Shows a monthly calendar in a table form, see notes for details

<<RandomItem(3)>>

Inserts names of 3 random items

<<RandomQuote(Itemname)>>

Select a random quote from the given item, or from FortuneCookies if omitted.

<<ShowIcons()>>

Displays all icons in /static/img/icons directory

<<ShowSmileys()>>

Displays available smileys and the corresponding markup

<<ShowUserGroup()>>

Displays metadata defined in usergroup attribute

<<ShowWikiDict()>>

Displays metadata defined in wikidict attribute

<<SlideShow()>>

Displays a link to start a slideshow for the current item

<<TableOfContents(2)>>

Shows a table of contents up to level 2

<<TitleIndex()>>

Lists all itemnames for the namespace of the current item, grouped by initials

<<Verbatim(`same` __text__)>>

Inserts text as entered, no markup rendering

Notes

Date and DateTime macros accept integer timestamps and ISO 8601 formatted date-times:

  • <<Date(1434563755)>>

  • <<Date(2002-01-23T12:34:56)>>

Footnotes are created by placing the macro within text. By default footnotes are placed at the bottom of the page. Explicit placement of footnotes is accomplished by calling the macro without a parameter.

  • text<<FootNote(A macro is enclosed in double angle brackets, and’’’may’’’ have markup.)>> more text

  • <<FootNote()>>

The FontAwesome macro displays FontAwesome fonts. See https://fontawesome.com/search?o=r&m=free for the list of fonts available with FontAwesome version 6.

The FontAwesome “name” parameter may include multiple space-separated names. The free fonts are divided into 3 groups: solid, regular (outline), and brands. If the name field consists of a single font name, then the font from the solid group is displayed. To display a font from the regular group, add “regular” to the name field. To display a font from the brands group, add “brands”.

The FontAwesome color field may be an HTML color name or a hex digit color code with a leading #: #f00 or #F80000. The size field must be an unsigned decimal integer or float that will adjust the size of the character relative to the current font size: 2 or 2.0 will create double the character size, .5 will create a character half the current size.

  • <<FontAwesome(thumbs-up,#f00,2)>> is similar to

  • <<FontAwesome(regular thumbs-up,red,2)>> but different from these spinners

  • <<FontAwesome(spin spinner,plum,2.5)>> <<FontAwesome(fan spin-reverse,orange,2.5)>>

The Include macro <<Include(my.png)>> produces results identical to the transclusion {{my.png}}. It is more flexible than a transclusion because it supports multiple parameters and the first parameter may be any regrex starting with a ^. The include macro accepts 3 parameters where the second parameter is a heading and the third parameter a heading level between 1 and 6:

  • <<Include(^zi)>> embeds all wiki items starting with zi.

  • <<Include(moin.png,My Favorite icon, 6)>>

The ItemList macro accepts multiple named parameters: item, startswith, regex, ordered and display.

  • <<ItemList(item=”Foo”)>> lists subitems of Foo item

  • <<ItemList(ordered=’True’)>> displays ordered list of subitems, default is unordered

  • <<ItemList(startswith=”Foo”)>> lists subitems starting with Foo

  • <<ItemList(regex=”Foo$”)>> lists subitems ending with Foo

  • <<ItemList(tag=”template”)>> only include items with this tag

  • <<ItemList(skiptag=”template”)>> ignore items with this tag

  • <<ItemList(display=”FullPath”)>> default, displays full path to subitems

  • <<ItemList(display=”ChildPath”)>> displays last component of the FullPath, including the ‘/’

  • <<ItemList(display=”ChildName”)>> displays subitem name

  • <<ItemList(display=”UnCameled”)>> displays “fooBar” as “foo Bar”

The MonthCalendar macro accepts multiple named parameters: item, year, month, month_offset, fixed_height and anniversary.

  • <<MonthCalendar>> Calendar of current month for current page

  • <<MonthCalendar(month_offset=-1)>> Calendar of last month

  • <<MonthCalendar(month_offset=+1)>> Calendar of next month

  • <<MonthCalendar(item=”SampleUser”,month=12)>> Calendar of Page SampleUser, this year’s december

  • <<MonthCalendar(month=12)>> Calendar of current Page, this year’s december

  • <<MonthCalendar(year=2022,month=12)>> Calendar of December, 2022

The SlideShow macro creates a link to start a presentation for the current item. The slides are separated by level 1 and 2 headings. The text before the first heading is ignored. Navigation within the slideshow can be controlled via corresponding buttons at the edge or bottom of the browser screen or using the left and right arrow keys.

Smileys and Icons

This table shows moin smiley markup, the rendering of smiley icons cannot be shown in Rest markup.

X-(

:D

<:(

:o

:(

:)

B)

:))

;)

/!\

<!>

(!)

:-?

:\

>:>

|)

:-(

:-)

B-)

:-))

;-)

|-)

(./)

{OK}

{X}

{i}

{1}

{2}

{3}

{*}

{o}

Comments

There are three ways to add comments to a page. Lines starting with ## can be seen only by page editors. Phrases enclosed in /* and */ and wiki parser section blocks of text with a class of “comment” may be hidden or visible depending upon user settings or actions.

Markup:

## Lines starting with "##" may be used to give instructions
## to future page editors.

Click on the "Comments" button within Item Views to toggle the /* comments */ visibility.

{{{#!wiki comment/dashed
This is a wiki parser section with class "comment dashed".

Its visibility gets toggled by clicking on the comments button.
}}}

Result:

Click on the “Comments” button within Item Views to toggle the visibility.

Notes:

  • The toggle display feature does not work on reST documents, so there is no way to see the hidden comments.