The Portark Language

Portark  is a language for text markup. It might be used to write simple articles or manuals.

Portark  is based on the Unotal  syntax that is described elsewhere.

Span Items

A string of printable characters (not including line or paragraph terminators), like »alpha« is a span item.

A room with a sequence of span items, like »< alpha beta>«, also is a span item.

Such a room might have types as markup, like »< &new alpha >«.

Span Item Types

:portark:new Marks a term that is being introduced here as a new term. I.e., the term is mentioned for the first time in this text, usually with an explicit or implicit explanation. This might be translated to a DFN element type in HTML.

(none) If a span does not have one of the type mentioned above, it is just a span (which might be translated to an HTML span element).

Example

[This is called a ]< &:portark:new map >[.]

HTML

This is called a <dfn>map</dfn>.

Paragraph Divisions

When a span item appears in a context, where a div item is expected, it is considered to be a paragraph division.

The following example shows a „text“, which expects div items as direct contents. So the two span items within this text are deemed Paragraphs.

Example

  < !portark &text 
    < < &new Portark>[ is a text markup language.] >
    < [Portark texts can be converted into HTML documents.] >>

HTML

  <div>
    <p><dfn>Portark</dfn>is a text markup language.</p>
    <p>Portark texts can be converted into HTML documents.</p></div>

Remark: This means that paragraphs are not mark up explicitly – instead every top-level entry within a text-room is deemed a paragraph.

Description Divisions

(Description divisions are a recent feature that is not being documented here yet.)

Division Items

The entries of a text room are division items.

A division item is either another text room or a paragraph division (later, also description divisions might be allowed).

Text Divisions

A room of type »:portark:text« is a text division (or the main division being described below).

It contains a sequence of division items (described above).

Example

  < !portark &text 
    < [Paragraph.] >
    < &text [A nested subtext.] >
    >

Text Division Attributes

:portark:heading The heading of this text division. A span item.

Example

  < !portark &text heading=[An Example]
    < [Paragraph.] >
    < &text heading=[A Nested Subtext] [Paragraph] >>

The Main Division

The top-level room of a Portark  document is the main division, which needs to have the type »:portark:text«.

Main Division Attributes

:portark:title The heading of this document. A span item.

Example

  < !portark &text title=[An Example]
    < [Paragraph.] >
    < &text heading=[A Nested Subtext] [Paragraph] >>

External Features

This section describes how additional information can modify a file generated from a Portark source.

The only current implementation uses a policy attribute from another source file to determined whether the HTML file generated has a metatag to allow or deny robots.