T8wn

Writing a page

8TML > Guides

Structure

A page is a header followed by blocks: paragraphs, headings, lists, quotes, preformatted text, separators and forms. The start of each line decides what it is (see Blocks). Inside the text you can use emphasis, colors, links and a few tags (see Inline markup).

Write for many screens

The same page is shown on screens from 22 to 80 columns. Let the client do the layout:

  • Write flowing text and let it wrap. Don’t break lines by hand to make a shape; it falls apart on a different width.
  • Keep headings short; they wrap like paragraphs.
  • Use preformatted text only for things that need fixed columns, and keep it narrow: lines wider than the screen are cut or scrolled sideways.
  • Use colors as a hint, not as the only way to say something: some machines show no colors at all.

The same paragraph on three machines:

Preview: Commodore 64, 40 columns

                                            
  This paragraph wraps on every screen.     
  The client decides where each line ends,  
  so the page reads well everywhere.

Preview: ZX Spectrum, 32 columns

                                    
  This paragraph wraps on every     
  screen. The client decides where  
  each line ends, so the page       
  reads well everywhere.

Preview: VIC-20, 22 columns

                          
  This paragraph wraps    
  on every screen. The    
  client decides where    
  each line ends, so the  
  page reads well         
  everywhere.

Upper and lower case

Pages are shown in uppercase unless the header says case: mixed, because many 8-bit machines start up in an uppercase character set. Your text keeps its case in the file either way. If your page has lowercase text, add case: mixed.

Characters

8TML uses 7-bit ASCII. Letters with accents, curly quotes and other non-ASCII characters show up as ? on the reader’s screen, so write a, " and - instead.

A few ASCII characters don’t exist on every machine. On Commodore computers \ ^ _ ` { | } ~ look different (\ appears as a pound sign, _ as a left arrow). Avoid them in text that matters. See Files and characters.

Links

Link to your other pages with relative addresses such as news.8tml or games/index.8tml; they keep working when the site moves to another host. A link to a folder (games/) loads its index.8tml. See Links and URLs.

Keep pages small

An 8-bit computer has little memory for a page. A client shows what fits and tells the reader that the page was cut. A few kilobytes per page is a good size; split longer texts into several pages and link them.

It’s also Markdown

Every 8TML page is a readable Markdown document, so code hosting sites and Markdown viewers show it nicely too. The 8TML extras (colors, forms) show up there as plain text.

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