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Lightweight markup language for text documents From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Setext (Structure Enhanced Text)[2] is a lightweight markup language used to format plain text documents such as e-newsletters, Usenet postings, and e-mails. In contrast to some other markup languages (such as HTML), the markup is easily readable without any parsing or special software.
Filename extension |
.etx[lower-alpha 1] |
---|---|
Developed by | Ian Feldman |
Initial release | January 6, 1992 |
Type of format | Lightweight markup language |
Setext was first introduced in 1991 by Ian Feldman for use in the TidBITS electronic newsletter.
Setext allows viewing of marked-up documents without special viewing software. When appropriate software is used, however, a rich text-style experience is available to the user.
Smaller documents are trivial to create in any text editor.
To prevent errors, most large setext publications are created using a markup language such as HTML or SGML and then converted. The setext document can then be distributed without the need for the recipient to use a HTML email or web viewer.
Multiple setext documents can be stored in the same file, similarly to how the mbox format can store multiple e-mail messages together.
It was initially announced[1] that multiple documents could be included in a single stream, separated by a special <end>
tag serving as a document delimiter[lower-alpha 2]. After several months, it was clarified[3] that this tag was not an official part of setext, and that multiple documents should instead be delimited by $$
appearing at the end of a line of text.
Regardless of the number of documents stored in the same file, basic metadata can be stored about any or all of them by using the subject-tt tag syntax.
The following are the ten most common of the 16 different setext tags.[4][5][lower-alpha 3]
Name[lower-alpha 6] | setext pattern | Example [lower-alpha 7] | Comments |
---|---|---|---|
title-tt | Title
|
This is a long title
====================
|
A distinct title identified by the text, maximum one per setext.
Must start at the beginning of the line. |
subhead-tt | Subhead
|
Subheading One
--------------
|
A distinct subheading identified by the text, zero or more per text.
Must start at beginning of line. See note in title-tt about handling. |
indent-tt | 66-char lines indented by 2 spaces | First paragraph...
...more of paragraph.
[blank line]
Next paragraph...
|
Lines undented and unfolded (longer lines are generally tolerated by most parsers).
This is primary body text, generally plain undented in emails, etc. currently. |
bold-tt | **[multi ]word**
| This is **very important**...
|
One or more bold words, generally *word* or **word** in emails |
italic-tt | ~word~
| This is an ~italic~ word.
|
A single, italicized word; multi-word form was not officially specified due to "visual-clarity reasons"
Multi-word form of |
underline-tt | [_multi ]word_
|
This is _underlined text_.
This is _underlined_text_.
|
Display in a (user) selected style, preferably with underlining--except in browsers where underlining corresponds to hot links.
One or more underlined words |
hot-tt | [multi_]word_ |
This is a hot_word_.
|
Used to mark notes and URLs[lower-alpha 8][lower-alpha 9] |
include-tt | >[space] [text] |
> This is quoted text...
> ...more...
|
Displayed in a user selected style, preferably monospaced with the leading ">" |
bullet-tt | *[space] [text]
|
* Item 1 that is...
...really long
* Item 2
|
Displayed in bullet or list format. |
href-tt | ^.. _hot_word URL |
^.. _Wikipedia_home_page https://wikipedia.org |
(Linked in the text with a hot-tt as Wikipedia_home_page_ )These 'link definitions' are commonly placed at the end of a paragraph/section, or at the very end of the setext document.[lower-alpha 9] |
By default all properly setext-ized files will have an ".etx" or ".ETX" suffix. This stands for an "emailable/enhanced text".[1]
Other lightweight markup languages (inspired by Setext):
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