Short description
"--" should create an en-dash, while "---" should create an em-dash. This is a common behaviour and it struck me as odd that MoinMoin doesn't support it.
Here's a probably incomplete patch: dashes.patch -- JohannesBerg 2007-04-02 17:44:28
I like that very much: Also doing some arrows with '-->' markup (⇒ or → )or writing '(C)' and getting the copyright character © for that would be a nice extra feature. -- OliverSiemoneit 2007-04-02 18:58:01
You might be interested to hear that no extra parsers are needed for this. Since MoinMoin supports Unicode, it also "supports" the en dash, em dash, or whatever you want: just type it in. Under Linux (and other X11-based systems) type Multi Key (usually, the right Windows key), then minus, minus, dot for the en dash, or Multi Key, minus, minus, minus for the em dash. Also, arrows and other special characters are available via the 3rd or 4th keyboard level (AltGr, ArtGr+Shift), or via compose. Those who understand German might want to have a look also at TastenKombinationenMitAltGr . HTH, -- MartinBayer 2007-04-02 23:53:34
No, actually, I'm not interested in that, it's a lot harder to use and explain. Just compare the length of your explanation with the length of the actual feature request text
-- JohannesBerg 2007-04-21 16:00:04 Well, we however don't have markup for single characters until now, only for styles (with exception for smilies). And I don't see any need to blow up MoinMoin's syntax only for those that don't want to learn how their keyboard works: we don't have markup like "u for ü, or (a) for @, why should we have it for dashes or arrows? And --> for an arrow doesn't save anything compared to AltGr+i. Furthermore, there is, as in any syntax change, the risk of breaking something in the already existing wiki pages (e.g. where (C) doesn't mean "Copyright", but Carbon or whatever). And giving up the one-to-one relationship ("bijection" in maths) of characters (not: styles) in the source code and the output, will make the wiki source code less portable and less accessible. Thus I suggest to stick to the principle that if you want to have a given character in the output, you have to type (or paste) it in as such. However, we could think about JavaScript-driven aids for typing in special characters, like MediaWiki and our GUI editor have. Which on the other hand means that you already can have what you want right now, if you use the GUI editor instead of the text editor. -- MartinBayer 2007-04-21 17:16:06
We should have a unicode keyboard mapping table on MoinMaster so that we can show the advantage of using unicode. Martin can you please add your table from the OOo wiki to a page there e.g. HelponSpecialChars. If the patch is applied then two ways could be used to create those dashes. -- ReimarBauer 2007-04-21 22:37:47
Keyboard mapping (1st trough 4th level) depends on O/S and language, and can't be described on a simple wiki help page (only for German already 5 tables for Linux and Windows). Composing (Linux) depends on language and configuration, however refer to /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose. For an overview of the most commonly used Unicode characters, refer to http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilfe:Sonderzeichenreferenz (German). -- MartinBayer 2007-04-21 23:28:03
I still think the best thing (in particular, better than playing with the syntax) would be a list like this under the text editor area (or, to be more precise, under the quickreference), where you can simply click on one of these items, which are then automagically inserted into the editor by some JavaScript. (This example is taken from MediaWiki, but please have also a look on our GUI editor.) 
Nah, that sucks, it only works with javascript and is not intuitive. Btw, the SIG that is implemented with @SIG@ even contains "--" in it which could look much better with an en-dash. I also don't see this as an education issue (you accusing me of not trying to learn how my keyboard works), a wiki is IMHO also about getting good results without knowing all that, and --/--- for en-dash/em-dash is a very common thing to do. -- JohannesBerg 2007-04-24 14:16:00
Well, this is not about "looking better", it's about equivalence between characters in the wiki source code and the HTML output—actually even the -- isn't an en dash, but a signature delimiter, as used in emails. And the signature delimiter consists of "dash, dash, space (newline)". If the patch proposed here was implemented, these two literally meant dashes would be substituted by an en dash—even in already existing pages—although it was not intended to get an en dash when the two dashes were inserted. I note you leave the question about what should happen to all existing wiki pages with literally meant dashes, arrows, and so on unanswered. I don't want to "accuse" anybody, but I'm under the impression that this feature request is not well thought-out. In particular, I think it has a very poor cost-benefit-ratio, as the cost could be breaking potentially all existing MoinMoin wiki pages all over the world. Even introducing an escape character like, say, \-- for two literally meant dashes would have some side-effect, as this would worsen the portability of MoinMoin's wiki markup (which means it will be harder to copy to and to paste from other wikis). I think I've made the "costs" clear enough now, so, what are the particular benefits of this feature? -- MartinBayer 2007-04-24 16:16:29