Just mark up your own text: it's not so hard to type <code>$foo->bar()</code> to get those characters to appear like $foo->bar() in the middle of a paragraph.

Likewise, here's a linebroken example.

<code>
$foo->bar();
</code>

$foo->bar();
[download]

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[ e d @ h a l l e y . c c ]

I've made changes to make non-HTML display better. For example, I can type $line= <STDIN>; without CODE tags (like I just did there) and it shows up fine. It used to show up as $line= ;.

I'd like to add a user setting such that "[link]" turns into "[link]" instead of the usual "link". New users would start with this setting turned on so that, if they don't know to use HTML, then their text will still be mostly recognizeable.

But these changes were mostly to help newbie users of the chatterbox. The feature that is supposed to help newbie posters is: PREVIEW. We even have forced preview now. We probably need to add some more hints to let newbie posters understand that the preview actually works and it is their posting that is broken :) (and other interface improvements).

Now, I mostly hate <br /> tags. So I don't want a "convert text to HTML" option because I don't want your text paragraphs to preserve their line breaks such that they don't adjust well to the different display/font sizes of different visitors.

I'd more likely take a hint from POD. I could see detecting blank lines and turning them into <p> automatically (for certain users or if no other HTML mark-up is present or something). And I could see detecting paragraphs with indented lines and putting those into CODE tags automatically (again, only if some test says we have a newbie poster).

Or I could see a button between "preview" and "submit" that tries to make automatic improvements like those in the above paragraph. How should this button be labeled? "Auto-fix HTML"? It could even replace your HTML with filtered HTML...

And I think I'd like to teach PM how to wrap text inside of PRE tags.

>How should this button be 
>labeled? "Auto-fix HTML"?
[download]

I kind of like the idea of "compile HTML" or "render HTML". It gives the impression that your code will be both executed and tested in the process. But that's just me, and it's kind of facetious.

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“Every bit of code is either naturally related to the problem at hand, or else it's an accidental side effect of the fact that you happened to solve the problem using a digital computer.”
M-J D

One of the biggest shocks of using perlmonks was finding that I needed to use HTML. That said I find I like this method better then typing in text, as it gives me a fair range of control, without having to learn anything new. Also, I'm the type who memorizes the keyboard short-cuts, in order to never use the mouse :)

I never thought of using <code> to type text as is.

"Pain is weakness leaving the body, I find myself in pain everyday" -me