I am creating a website and would like to add a few StackOverflow-esque markup. For instance,
Code that can
take up multiple lines
elegantly,
Blockquotes easily added,
and et cetera.
Is this just a lot of CSS, (that I will code if I have to) or can I integrate a StackOverflow markdown into my code?
Take a look at adding what's known as a 'markdown' library. There are plenty out there that all follow the same general syntax, I personally use Showdown: http://showdownjs.com/.
Undoubtedly YES
Stack Overflow use markdown and There are many libraries for implementing markdown, for example many developers suggest you to use showdown, I prefer to use remarkable but I suggest at first investigate about them.
I proffer to you read awesome article about markdown libraries and choose the best one for your case.
I'm trying to implement my own little reader view app (an app that would do the same thing as reader-mode on safari), and there are a few things I find asking myself:
Is there a technical term for this feature (reader-view doesn't really cut it)?
Is there a standard that websites are supposed to follow in order to indicate the content they would like to have in their reader views
Is there an open-source set of HTML parsing rules to pull the "readable" content from a website?
Is the effort to implement such a thing simply too big for a single person in a few weeks and if so should I opt for services such as Instaparser?
I believe the original to be implemented by arc90, and they called it readability. You can check out their page here.
It's been ported to many different languages over time, so you could take a look at the different implementations to learn more about it, how it's done etc.
Python readability
JReadability
JavaScript
Ruby
This is just a small sample here, there's many more examples if you would like to find more.
Edit: Oops, after some more Googling I found this question with an answer that explains it very well.
Can anybody point me in the right direction as to how to
implement the editor that opens up when I try to post an answer or type a new question ?
Also when displaying the replies how is the feature with syntax highlighting for the code snippets implemented ?
As far as I know, the Javascript based editor is a heavily modified version of WMD Markdown Editor.
Moving on to your second question. What server side language are you using? For example, in PHP Geshi is a popluar syntax highlighter. Although I personally have not worked with it.
Try the Editor control that comes with AJAX Control Tool kit
I am looking for a tool to display/track changes in text a little bit like it is done on stackoverflow when a question is edited. Does anybody know of a tool to achieve that?
You may want to use diff for that.
If you can use PHP on your server there's a handy pear package to perform the task you require. Here's an example :
https://web.archive.org/web/1/http://articles.techrepublic%2ecom%2ecom/5100-10878_11-6174867.html
There's actually a actually Javascript implementations outhere as well, not tested though:
http://ejohn.org/projects/javascript-diff-algorithm/
http://aignes.net/
Commercial tool though. I have no idea of a F/OSS alternative.
A copy of my own answer from here.
What about DaisyDiff (Java and PHP vesions available).
Following features are really nice:
Works with badly formed HTML that can be found "in the wild".
The diffing is more specialized in HTML than XML tree differs. Changing part of a text node will not cause the entire node to be changed.
In addition to the default visual diff, HTML source can be diffed coherently.
Provides easy to understand descriptions of the changes.
The default GUI allows easy browsing of the modifications through keyboard shortcuts and links.
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Latex-to-html converters I've seen in the past have been pretty awful. Editing raw html is no fun and doesn't seem to translate well to the printed page. How do others solve this problem? Links to examples (both pdf and html) would be great.
Added: Another similar question was just asked:
What formatting language should I use for project documentation
For documenting code, I also recommend Sphinx. ReStructured Text is nice because it is readable and somewhat marked up in plaintext, and can do a nice job converting to html and to pdf. I still like LaTeX for certain things. My wife and I use LaTeX to write our christmas letter, which we mail out via snail mail. The pdf version is pretty fancy, with two columns, and headers and footers. The html version is simpler. I convert with plastex. Examples here:
http://fedibblety.com/annualReports
I don't think any binary format is a good choice (Word) for any sort of document that you might like to read 10 years from now. That is one of the nice things about LaTeX.
Yes, LaTeX-to-HTML converters used to suck (you've probably tried LaTeX2HTML), but of late they've got better. Tex4ht is highly configurable, and produces nice XHTML+CSS. See also other converters.
You can also use Docbook, if you can bear to write in it. There are converters from DocBook to both HTML and LaTeX (or to PDF directly); an example of the latter is dblatex.
See this post: LaTeX vs Docbook.
After many years of anguish and several false starts, I'm about to revisit this, and I'm going to give Sphinx a try. It can generate HTML or LaTeX from ReStructured Text.
I'm hoping it will be a much "lighter" option than full DocBook, but with many of the advantages.
You could take a step back and use something like DocBook and render to PDF via LaTeX and HTML straight from the DocBook files. Alternatively, Adobe Technical Communication Suite (Framemaker) will let you single-source a document to PDF and HTML. See this posting for a rundown on various technical documentation systems.
This is a personal choice but Latex in theory is perfect however in practice it's pain-in-the-arse. I'm using VS.NET HTML editor + raw HTML edit when I need it.
So I think using an WSIWYG HTML editor is best choice. You can always use a simple tool to convert it to PDF, and you can always edit HTML when you need something advanced. Also it's easier to put online when you need.
That's how I'm managing my software documentations and works fine for me.
PlasTeX looks like a nice latex-to-html converter, though I haven't tried it myself.
My friend Rob Felty wrote a blog post extolling its virtues:
http://blog.robfelty.com/2008/03/19/finally-a-better-latex-to-html-converter/
AsciiDoc looks like an interesting possibility.
Read about EPUB format. Its e-book format. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB
Since the answer mentioning Asciidoc was somewhat short on examples, here are some of the things your are looking for:
A pdf generated with Asciidoc
A cheatsheet with a side by side of the Asciidoc markup and the html result.
A list of publications done using Asciidoc, including O'Reilly books and the git documentation (to see both ends of the user scale).
I'm not sure that latex is really the best tool for this. The trouble you're having with the usual latex to html converter is indicative of the problem: html is simple not as expressive as latex.
If you insist on latex to html, take care to use a limited subset that can convert reasonably.
I've used TeXinfo in the past and it does a good job. Here's an example: http://yootles.com/api. I'd prefer to stick with LaTeX though instead of use another language.
If everything else fails you could grab an LaTeX to XML converter and write a simple XSLT stylesheet to convert it to HTML, or create a CSS style sheet and attach it to the XML file directly.
We've been using WebWorks ePublisher (www.webworks.com) which offers both multiple single-source formats (we are using Word) and the ability to output to many output formats (we output to Adobe PDF and Online Help (.CHM).
We were facing this problem in an academic project that involved Eclipse software, and we used plastex to convert Latex to HTML and Eclipse Help. Getting it to work was quite difficult, but the end result looks really nice. You can see all three versions here:
http://handbook.event-b.org/
Further, as this is an open project, the code (build scripts) are available. We have a continuous build system (Jenkins) that rebuilds everything when new Latex is checked in. This is particularly nice, as contributors don't need to install the toolchain on their systems. They just check in the new Latex and check on the server whether the HTML was produced correctly. Sources:
http://sourceforge.net/p/rodin-b-sharp/svn/HEAD/tree/trunk/Handbook/org.rodinp.handbook.feature/
Best, Michael
I don't have enough points to comment, but to bolster the plastex answer, here is the updated plastex example link:
http://robfelty.com/2008/03/19/finally-a-better-latex-to-html-converter
LaTeX? Seriously? I wasn't aware anyone outside academia still used it. I'd go with HTML, which you can save as PDF from the web browser. If you really must have some advanced typographic stuff, go with Word instead - it has a way to save to HTML (probably not as clean as one would like), and you can save as PDF with a free plug-in (downloadable separately).
Oh, and I wouldn't bother using things like InDesign - they are overkill. Also, don't bother paying for Acrobat Professional - there is a zillion free solutions available.