WikiStyles allow an author to modify the color and other attributes of text that follow. A style specification such as %red% will cause the following text to be displayed as red until the end of the line or the next pair %% of percent signs. For example:

   %red% This text is red and %blue% this text is blue %% but 
   this text is normal.

gives

The set of predefined wiki styles is customizable by the WikiAdministrator. Most PmWiki systems define %newwin% to cause links to open in a new window (example), and standard text colors such as %black%, %white%, %red%, %green%, %blue%, etc.

Creating new styles

Placing color, bgcolor, or target specifications inside of a pair of percent signs will change the style of the following text to use those colors up to the end of a line or until the next pair of percent-signs. For example:

    %color=red% This text is red and %color=blue% this text 
    is blue %% but this text is normal. 

renders as

If one wants the formatting to continue past the end of the line, there are a couple options one can use (found here).

For example, using %block color=red% will continue the formatting until it gets to to the end of the current block/paragraph. For example:

This is some text %block color=red% that
is being colored red by the wikistyle in the line.

The other options (according to the e-mail) are:
%item color=red%
%list color=red%
%block color=red%

A brief explanation of the difference between item, list, and block

 Apply=block applies to any sort of block markup, such as

paragraphs, lists, indents, and list items. Apply=list applies to an entire list -- i.e., anything that generates a <dl>, <ol>, or <ul> tag. Apply=item applies only to an individual list item (<li>, <dd>, <dt>).

So given the markup

   * %apply=XXX border='1px solid black'% First
   * second
   * third 

   *  First 
   * second
   * third 

if XXX is 'item' (as in 'apply=item'), then only the first bullet item will have a box around it. If XXX is 'list', then the entire bullet list will be placed in a box. And if XXX is 'block', then the bullet list will be placed in a box, as well as the first list item (because 'block' covers both).

One can also change the background color using the bgcolor attribute:

    %color=black bgcolor=green% This text is black on green 
    %color=green bgcolor=black% and this is green on black.%% 

This text is black on green and this is green on black.

One can specify that links should open in a new window via the target attribute:

    %target=_blank% Any links on this line like http://www.pmichaud.com 
    will open in a new window. 

which gives

Finally, WikiStyles can control the width and height of ImagesInWikiPages, thus the markup

    %height=50% http://www.example.com/some.gif

will display some.gif scaled to a height of 50 pixels.

Style definitions

Wiki authors can also make their own WikiStyle definitions within a document using the define attribute. For example, the statement

    %define=hotpink color=#ff69b4%

will cause the markup %hotpink% to be a shortcut for %color=#ff69b4% (like this). One can specify multiple items in a definition, as in

    %define=reverse color=white bgcolor=black%

which allows %reverse% to cause reverse video, and %reverse hotpink% to be the combination of both shortcuts.

It's often a good idea to put common style definitions into GroupHeaders so that they can be shared among multiple pages in a group. Or, the WikiAdministrator can predefine styles as a LocalCustomization -- see CustomWikiStyles.

Predefined and custom styles

See Custom Wiki Styles for a description of the WikiStyles that are predefined in a standard installation of PmWiki. That page also describes how an administrator can predefine additional WikiStyles.

Colors

For some examples of colors, see WikiStyleColors?

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