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Web Developer Resource Index: Lightweight

A Lightweight Markup Language is characterized by a very simple syntax, is written in and stored as plain text, and remains readable even before being translated into some other format. The concept of lightweight markup languages is nothing new, troff(1), for both online Unix manual pages and printing, dates back to c. 1970. The same basic concept is widely used today in Web-based publishing platforms such as wikis, blogs, and more sophisticated CMS applications. These systems typically allow a user to enter content into a text area that is then transformed and published as HTML.

While the primary goal of many of these languages is in their ease of use, in practice I've found they fall short. For some, the hard things are indeed easy, while easy things are difficult or impossible without resorting to using an extension of some kind. In my opinion, the real strength lies in their readability in raw, source-form. HTML documents, for example, are very difficult to skim for content.

Updated: Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 @ 3:54 AM EST

Data Formats:Markup Languages:Lightweight {0}(10)[82]

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1.Markdown

A text-to-HTML transformation tool for Web authors. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then converts it to structurally valid HTML or XHTML. It has all the hallmarks of a good lightweight markup language. [1861]
★★★★★
URI:http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/
Author:
John Gruber
[2]
Reviewed:Thursday, December 4th, 2008 @ 3:18 PM EST
by:
Douglas Clifton

Markdown blog html languages markup wiki xhtml
2.Trac Wiki Engine

The wiki engine behind the Trac SCM Project. Also written in Python, is based largely on MoinMoin and other popular wikis. Built on top of the Genshi templating engine, it is extensible through macros and other plugins, as is the rest of the Trac system. [1877]
★★★★☆
URI:http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/WikiFormatting
Author:
Edgewall Software
[3]
Reviewed:Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 @ 3:54 AM EST
by:
Douglas Clifton

Trac Wiki Engine extension languages markup python template version control wiki
3.MoinMoin Wiki Engine

An advanced, yet simple to install and easy to use, wiki engine written in Python. There are a number of ready to install extensions, or you can roll your own if you know some Python. The markup language is also easy to use, an all-around great package. [1876]
★★★★☆
URI:http://moinmo.in/HelpOnMoinWikiSyntax
Author:
Thomas Waldmann
[1]
Reviewed:Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 @ 3:25 AM EST
by:
Douglas Clifton

MoinMoin Wiki Engine extension languages markup python wiki
4.Wikitext

Wikitext is the markup language used by the MediaWiki system, which was originally developed for Wikipedia and is now distributed as a sophisticated open-source wiki platform. The language should look familiar, however MediaWiki is a complex wiki package. [1866]
★★★★☆
URI:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Editing
Author:
Wikimedia Foundation
[2]
Reviewed:Saturday, December 20th, 2008 @ 2:00 AM EST
by:
Douglas Clifton

Wikitext languages markup open-source wiki
5. $icon$ LaTeX

A document markup language and preparation system for the TeX typesetting program. Used mostly in academia, it's widely known for marking up sophisticated mathematical expressions. TeX was developed by Donald Knuth, if you don't know who that is go away. [1865]
★★★★☆
URI:http://www.latex-project.org/
Author:
Leslie Lamport
[1]
Reviewed:Friday, December 19th, 2008 @ 11:24 PM EST
by:
Douglas Clifton

LaTeX docbook languages markup
6.reStructuredText

An easy-to-read, plain text markup syntax and parser system. It is useful for in-line program documentation (such as Python docstrings), for quickly creating simple Web pages, and for standalone documents. reStructuredText is the engine behind Docutils. [1864]
★★★★☆
URI:http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
Author:
David Goodger
[1]
Reviewed:Friday, December 19th, 2008 @ 10:33 PM EST
by:
Douglas Clifton

reStructuredText languages markup python
7.Textile

The markup language used by the Texpattern CMS/Blogware package. I'm beginning to wonder when someone is going to try and unify and standardize these languages. Many of them are very similar, it seems silly to have to remember slightly different syntax. [1863]
★★★★☆
URI:http://textile.thresholdstate.com/
Author:
Alex Shiels
[1]
Reviewed:Friday, December 19th, 2008 @ 8:48 PM EST
by:
Douglas Clifton

Textile blog cms languages markup xhtml
8.Markdown Extra

An enhanced version of PHP Markdown, of which I am a huge fan. This release includes support for inline HTML, block-level elements, definition lists, tables, and new rules for emphasis and backslash escapes. Kudos to Michel, nice work! [1463]
★★★★☆
URI:http://michelf.com/projects/php-markdown/extra/
Author:
Michel Fortin
[3]
Reviewed:Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005 @ 11:28 AM EDT
by:
Douglas Clifton

Markdown Extra blog markup php programming
9.PHP SmartyPants

Another PHP port from Michel, this time it's SmartyPants. This text filter converts ASCII punctuation characters to their corresponding typographic entities such as curly quotes, en/em dashes and ellipsis. Use with Smarty, WordPress, or your own programs. [1372]
★★★★☆
URI:http://michelf.com/projects/php-smartypants/
Author:
Michel Fortin
[3]
Reviewed:Monday, July 4th, 2005 @ 4:10 PM EDT
by:
Douglas Clifton

PHP SmartyPants blog encoding markup perl php programming typography
10.PHP Markdown

A port of John Gruber's Markdown, a simple yet effective plain text markup language. Designed as a plug-in for Wordpress or bBlog, a Textile replacement, an enhancement to the Smarty template engine, and is very easy to use in your own programs. [1230]
★★★★☆
URI:http://michelf.com/projects/php-markdown/
Author:
Michel Fortin
[3]
Reviewed:Monday, May 23rd, 2005 @ 6:20 PM EDT
by:
Douglas Clifton

PHP Markdown blog markup perl php programming