I suppose CGI script authors periodically encounter a need to allow users to put some input into a textarea and have that input become part of some web page. In some cases, users want to be able to format their input and they may or may not know HTML.

I've got a first stab at a module to address this situation. It's only intended to cover roughly "textarea input", rather than any arbitrary HTML page worth of content. The idea is to cover your basic blog or slashdot type of discussion input, not to support HTML page authoring.

The code will identify paragraphs, including preformated sections (which can be indented or identified with email-style angle-bracket-prefix quoting). The code will translate
*email* style /markup/
into
html style markup
and translate a line of dashes into a horizontal rule.

The tags used for paragraphs and preformated sections are programmer-configurable, as is the type of _text markup_ to be supported.

There are other options for allowing links, labeling link destinations (a la slashdot) breaking long words, etc.

You can find info at

http://wickline.org/pause/_scratchwork_/HfT/
module source
module pod-as-html
a script to play with
source of said script

The script lets you tweak all of the various config options and supply arbitrary input, and then see what the resulting output would be. It's basically a more pleasant way to play-test the module than writing/editing a script to use it.

I'm wondering whether folks think this should be CPAN'ed. What should be changed? What should stay the same? What name should it have?

Thanks for your time :)

-matt

Edit kudra, 2002-04-19 Changed title per ntc request

In reply to Potential CPAN module for formatted user input websites by wickline

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


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