Textile is a

lightweight markup language A lightweight markup language (LML), also termed a simple or humane markup language, is a markup language with simple, unobtrusive syntax. It is designed to be easy to write using any generic text editor and easy to read in its raw form. Lightw ...

that uses a text formatting syntax to convert plain text into structured HTML markup. Textile is used for writing articles, forum posts, readme documentation, and any other type of written content published online.

History

Textile was developed by Dean Allen in 2002, which he billed as "a humane web text generator" that enabled you to "simply write". Dean created Textile for use in Textpattern, the CMS he also developed about the same time. Textile is one of several lightweight markup languages to have influenced the development of

Markdown Markdown is a lightweight markup language for creating formatted text using a plain-text editor. John Gruber created Markdown in 2004 as an easy-to-read markup language. Markdown is widely used for blogging and instant messaging, and also used ...

Doctype support

Text marked-up with Textile converts into valid

HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...

when rendered in a web browser, and though it probably varies from one implementation type to another, an installation of Textile can be set for a Doctype Declaration of XHTML or

HTML5 HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language 5) is a markup language used for structuring and presenting hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. It was the fifth and final major HTML version that is now a retired World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommend ...

, with XHTML being the default for backward compatibility. In the PHP implementation, for example, when using Textile's all-caps abbreviation syntax – AGE(A Given Example) – the result will render as an abbr element in HTML5 and as an acronym element in XHTML. Likewise, as of PHP version 3.5, if you use alignment markers in Textile's image syntax, HTML5 will get extra classes on the rendered img element, while XHTML remains with the align attribute.

Syntax usage

Various resources are available for learning and using Textile: * TxStyle – a help site for the PHP implementation of Textile, and provides a converter. This site is currently used by the Textpattern CMS project. * Textile Reference Site for RedCloth – a help site for the Ruby implementation of Textile. * Textile Syntax: Eclipse – a reference site for the Java implementation of Textile that's now merged with Mylin WikiText. * Textile 2 Syntax – MovableType's Textile authoring documentation. * Textile Cheatsheet – a basic quick-reference sheet from Warped Visions. In addition to its suite of syntax usage, Textile automatically inserts

character entity reference Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to Theoph ...

s for

apostrophes The apostrophe (, ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes: * The marking of the omission of one o ...

, opening and closing single and double

quotation mark Quotation marks are punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to identify direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase. The pair consists of an opening quotation mark and a closing quotation mark, which may or may not be the sam ...

s, ellipses and em dashes, to name a few.

Licensing

Textile is distributed under a BSD-style license and is included with, or available as a plugin for, several content-management systems.

Software and services

Various projects use (or have used) Textile: * Basecamp Classic – the original Basecamp project management software from 37signals used Textile * Assembla *

Atlassian Atlassian Corporation () is an Australia, Australian-United States, American proprietary software company that specializes in collaboration tools designed primarily for software development and project management. Domicile (law), Domiciled in ...

( JIRA) *

Guild Wars 2 ''Guild Wars 2'' is a free-to-play, massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by ArenaNet and published by NCSoft. Set in the fantasy world of Tyria, the core game follows the re-emergence of Destiny's Edge, a disbanded guild dedi ...

official forums *

Jekyll (software) Jekyll is a static site generator written in Ruby by Tom Preston-Werner. It is distributed under the open source MIT license. History Jekyll was first released by Tom Preston-Werner in 2008. Jekyll was later taken over by Parker Moore, an emplo ...

Know Your Meme Know Your Meme (KYM) is a website and video series that uses wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki ...

OpenProject OpenProject is project management software for cloud and on-premises based companies with a focus on transparency and data sovereignty. OpenProject is open source software, released under the GNU (General Public License) Version 3 (GPLv3). OpenP ...

* Qt official forums * Redmine * Salesforce.com – uses Textile in its Desk.com product *

SUSE Studio SUSE Studio was an online Linux software creation tool by SUSE. Users could develop their own Linux distro, software appliance, or virtual appliance, mainly choosing which applications and packages they want on their " custom" Linux and how it ...

* Textile Note – a text application for

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

, Android, and Windows that supports Textile * Textile Wiki * WriteMonkey – a distraction-free desktop text editor for Windows; supports various markup languages, including Textile * WiGit – a

Git Git () is a distributed version control system that tracks versions of files. It is often used to control source code by programmers who are developing software collaboratively. Design goals of Git include speed, data integrity, and suppor ...

-based Wiki

References

{{reflist, 30em

External links

Official website
Lightweight markup languages