If it were, though, it would allow people to just use \(char) to encode characters without remembering the bloody escape codes. (If you didn't want that feature, it could even be made a user configurable option.)

I would prefer that syntax to having PerlMonks create new HTML-like escapes.

I like the idea of easily escaping out special chars in a consistant way. How would you do formatting regions like bold and italics? The T_EX way, which is also consistant with Perl's concepts, that \ in front of a nonletter removes special meaning, but \ in front of a letter adds special meaning?

—John

You can arrange to do it any way you want. You can also make large chunks of it user configurable. But personally I like the idea of winding up with a markup language which is mainly HTML with a few handy shortcuts. So I would suggest sticking with the usual tags.

In the meantime, I think it would be better to patch the Everthing engine to s/[/[/g than using some syntax that doesn't follow any of the existing rules.

g r i n d e r

g r i n d e r ,

I see the entity name spelled out. It's IE 5.5.

I remember netscape didn't like mdash or ldquo or bunches of others, a while back. It's stupid though—how hard can it be to update a simple mapping table, especially when the standard lists all the available codes?

I agree the Monistary itself can deal with it. It can simply know all the real entity names itself, and always send out the number form instead, so the browser see &#xxx; form even though I typed the &name; form.

—John