Starting with XWiki Enterprise version 1.7 and above we've introduced a new wiki syntax. So we're now naming the current syntax the XWiki Syntax v1.0 and the new syntax is logically called the XWiki Syntax v2.0. The main reasons for introducing the new syntax were:

• Fix the limitations and ambiguities of the XWiki 1.0 syntax (which was inspired by both Radeox - the underlying rendering engine - and TWiki).
  • Not optimal symbols. For example the symbol for bold was single stars. This was causing trouble when users were entering text containing stars since that text was mistakenly considered to be bold when it wasn't. Hence we've rationalized the syntax by using at least double characters everywhere. 
  • Ambiguities. For example there was an ambiguity between a bold item starting a line and a bulletted list. Resolving the ambiguities was required in order to rewrite the WYSIWYG editor so that it could be deterministic.
• Be closer to the Creole 1.0 syntax which is becoming a standard for wiki syntax. In addition the Creole community has taken the time to analyze all the existing wiki syntaxes before deciding on symbols. The choices made are thus very good.

In addition to these 2 XWiki syntaxes we've also changed our underlying rendering engine (was Radeox previously) in favor of our own engine which is superset wrapper around Wikimodel and Doxia (and possibly others in the future). This has allowed us to provide other syntaxes in the wiki: MediaWiki, Confluence, JSPWiki, Creole, TWiki and more

General Remarks

XWiki Syntax v2.0 corrects some errors or ambiguous syntax entered by the user as shown in the examples in the table below.

Paragraphs

Paragraphs are text elements separated by 2 or more new lines.

Information

In XWiki Syntax 2.0 new lines are honored which is not the case in XWiki Syntax 1.0 and in Creole syntax.

Headers

= level 1 = 
== level 2 ==
=== level 3 ===
==== level 4 ====
===== level 5 =====
====== level 6 ======

Text Formatting

Information

New in XWiki Syntax 2.0 over XWiki Syntax 1.0:

• Spaces are allowed just after the syntax symbols (for example in XWiki Syntax 1.0, this was not * bold *).
• Use double symbols when there was only a single symbol in XWiki Syntax 1.0 so that it's less likely that the user will mistakenly use them in text.
• Ability to span several lines (wasn't the case in XWiki Syntax 1.0).

Horizontal Line

Information

There must be 4 or more dashes.

Information

Note that this is different from Creole where exactly 4 dashes are required.

(% style="color:blue" %)
----

Lists

* item 1
** item 2
*** item 3
* item 4

* item 1
** item 2
*** item 3
* item 4

1. item 1
11. item 2
111. item 3
1. item 4

1. item 1
11. item 2
111. item 3
1. item 4

1. item 1
1*. item 2
1*. item 3
1. item 4

1. item 1
1*. item 2
1*. item 3
1. item 4

- item 1
- item 2

(% style="list-style-type: square" %)
* item 1
* item 2

(% style="list-style-type: disc" %)
* item 1
* item 2

a. item 1
a. item 2

(% style="list-style-type: lower-alpha" %)
* item1
* item2

A. item 1
A. item 2

(% style="list-style-type: upper-alpha" %)
* item1
* item2

i. item 1
i. item 2

(% style="list-style-type: lower-roman" %)
* item1
* item2

I. item 1
I. item 2

(% style="list-style-type: upper-roman" %)
* item1
* item2

g. item 1
g. item 2

(% style="list-style-type: lower-greek" %)
* item1
* item2

G. item 1
G. item 2

(% style="list-style-type: upper-greek" %)
* item1
* item2

h. item 1
h. item 2

(% style="list-style-type: hiragana" %)
* item1
* item2

H. item 1
H. item 2

(% style="list-style-type: hiragana-iroha" %)
* item1
* item2

k. item 1
k. item 2

(% style="list-style-type: katakana" %)
* item1
* item2

K. item 1
K. item 2

(% style="list-style-type: katakana-iroha" %)
* item1
* item2

<ul style="list-style-type: armenian">
  <li>item1</li>
  <li>item2</li>
</ul>

(% style="list-style-type: armenian" %)
* item1
* item2

j. item1
j. item2

(% style="list-style-type: hebrew" %)
* item1
* item2

<ul style="list-style-type: georgian">
  <li>item1</li>
  <li>item2</li>
</ul>

(% style="list-style-type: georgian" %)
* item1
* item2

<ul style="list-style-type: cjk-ideographic">
  <li>item1</li>
  <li>item2</li>
</ul>

(% style="list-style-type: cjk-ideographic" %)
* item1
* item2

Definition Lists

<dl>
  <dt>term</dt>
  <dd>definition</dd>
</dl>

; term
: definition

<dl>
  <dt>term1</dt>
  <dd>definition1
    <dl>
      <dt>term2</dt>
      <dd>definition2</dd>
    </dl>
  </dd>
</dl>

; term1
: definition1
:; term2
:: definition2

<dl style="color:blue">
  <dt>term</dt>
  <dd>definition</dd>
</dl>

(% style="color:blue" %)
; term
: definition

New Line/Line breaks

A new line is a carriage return. A line break is a forced new line that can appear anywhere in the text.

Information

In XWiki Syntax 2.0 new lines are honored which is not the case in XWiki Syntax 1.0 and in Creole syntax.

Links

Feature	XWiki Syntax 1.0	XWiki Syntax 2.0	Result XWiki Syntax 1.0	Result XWiki Syntax 2.0
Link to a page in the current Space	[WebHome]	[[WebHome]]	Web Home	XWiki
Link with a label	[label>WebHome]	[[label>>WebHome]]	label	label
Link to a page with the space specified	[Main.WebHome]	[[Main.WebHome]]	Web Home	Main
Link to a subwiki	[subwiki:Main.WebHome]	[[subwiki:Main.WebHome]]	Web Home	Main
Link that opens in a new page	[label>WebHome>_blank]	[[label>>WebHome||rel="__blank"]]	label	label
Link to a URL directly in the text	This is a URL: http://xwiki.org	This is a URL: http://xwiki.org	This is a URL: http://xwiki.org	This is a URL: http://xwiki.org
Link to a URL	[http://xwiki.org]	[[http://xwiki.org]]	http://xwiki.org	http://xwiki.org
Link to a URL with a label	[XWiki>http://xwiki.org]	[[XWiki>>http://xwiki.org]]	XWiki	XWiki
Link to an email	[john@smith.net>mailto:john@smith.net]	[[john@smith.net>>mailto:john@smith.net]]	john@smith.net	john@smith.net
Image Link	<a href="$xwiki.getURL("Space1.Page1")">{image:img.png|document=Space2.Page2}</a>	[[image:Space2.Page2@img.png>>Space1.Page1]] InformationWiki syntax is supported inside link labels
Link to attachment	InformationSee Attach Macro for details {attach:text|file=img.png}	[[text>>attach:img.png]]	text	text

XWiki Syntax 1.0 Link Specification

The full format of a link is (alias[|>])+(link)(@interWikiAlias)+([|>]target)+

• alias: An optional string which will be displayed to the user as the link name when rendered. Example: "My Page".
• link: The full link reference using the following syntax: (virtualWikiAlias+(space.)+(reference)(?queryString)+(#anchor)+
• Note that either the link or the alias must be specified.
  • virtualWikiAlias: An optional string containing the name of a virtual wiki. The link will point to a page inside that virtual wiki. Example: "mywiki".
  • space: An optional Wiki Space name. If not space is specified the current space is used. Example: "Main".
  • reference: The link reference. This can be either a URI in the form protocol:path (example: "http://xwiki.org", "mailto:john@smith.com") or a wiki page name (example: "WebHome").
  • queryString: An optional query string for specifying parameters that will be used in the rendered URL. Example: "mydata1=5&mydata2=Hello".
  • anchor: An optional anchor name pointing to an anchor defined in the referenced link. Note that in XWiki anchors are automatically created for titles. Example: "TableOfContentAnchor".
• interWikiAlias: An optional Inter Wiki alias as defined in the InterWiki Map (see the Admin Guide). Example: "wikipedia"
• target: An optional string corresponding to the HTML target attribute for a HTML A link element. This element is used when rendering the link. It defaults to opening the link in the current page. Examples: "_self", "_blank"

XWiki Syntax 2.0 Link Specification

The full format of a link is (label>>)?(link)(||parameters)*

• label: the link label, can contain wiki syntax
• link: the link target, i.e. where to go when the link is clicked. It has a similar format than in the XWiki 1.0 syntax and it can also contain 2 types of URIs: mailto: and ## for linking to an email and linking to an attachment respectively.
• parameters: An optional list of parameters passed to the link.

Tables

Allows to easily create content in table format. It also support parameters for table, row or cell in XWiki Syntax 2.0.

|=Title 1|=Title 2
|Word 1|Word 2

(% style="background-color:red;align=center" %)
|=Title 1|=(% style="background-color:yellow" %)Title 2
|Word 1|Word 2

$xwiki.ssfx.use("js/xwiki/table/table.css")
$xwiki.jsfx.use("js/xwiki/table/tablefilterNsort.js", true)
<table id="tableid" class="grid sortable filterable doOddEven">
  <tr class="sortHeader">
    <th>Title1</th>
    <th>Title2</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
   <td>Cell11</td>
   <td>Cell12</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
   <td>Cell21</td>
   <td>Cell22</td>
  </tr>
</table>

Images

Feature	XWiki Syntax 1.0	XWiki Syntax 2.0	Result
Image from attachment in current page	InformationSee Image Macro for details {image:img.png}	image:img.png
Image from attachment in another document	{image:img.png|document=Space.Page}	image:Space.Page@img.png
Image with parameters	{image:img.png|width=25|height=25}	[[image:img.png||width="25" height="25"]]
Images located at URL	http://some/url/img.png	image:http://some/url/img.png

Verbatim

Allow to enter content that will not be formatted (in other words the wiki syntax will not be taken into account).

Information

In XWiki Syntax 1.0 the Pre macro only preserves wiki syntax and Radeox macros. However HTML snippets and Groovy/Velocity scripts are still executed.

{{{
multi line
**verbatim**
content
}}}

multi line
*verbatim*
content

multi line
**verbatim**
content

Quotations

Allows to quote some text.

> john said this
I said ok

> john said this
>> marie answered that
I said ok

Groups

Groups can be used to insert another document inline directly into the current document. This allows for example to insert complex elements inside a list item or inside a table cell. Groups are delimited by the following syntactic elements: (((...))). One Group can contain another Group and there is no limit of imbrication.

XWiki Syntax 1.0	XWiki Syntax 2.0	Result
InformationThis feature doesn't exist in XWiki syntax 1.0. You'd have to use pure HTML to achieve the result.	|=Header 1|=Header 2|=Header 3 |Cell One|((( = Embedded document Some embedded paragraph. * list item one * list item two ** sub-item 1 ** sub-item 2 ))) | Cell Three Next paragraph in the top-level document	Header 1 Header 2 Header 3 Cell One Embedded document Some embedded paragraph. list item one list item two sub-item 1 sub-item 2  Cell Three Next paragraph in the top-level document

Escapes

Macros

There are 2 kinds of macros in XWiki syntax 1.0:

• Velocity macros (called using the #macroname(param1 ... paramN) syntax)
• Radeox macros (called using the {macroname:param1=value1|...|paramN=valueN} syntax)

There are also 2 kinds of macros in XWiki Syntax 2.0:

• Velocity macros (called using the #macroname(param1 ... paramN) syntax inside the Velocity Macro)
• XWiki macros (called using the {{macroname param1="value1" ... paramN="valueN"}} syntax)

Information

The Radeox macros cannot be used in XWiki Syntax 2.0. Thus they have been rewritten as XWiki macros.

Information

For the full list of available macros check the Macro Reference page.

Feature	XWiki Syntax 1.0	XWiki Syntax 2.0
Velocity Macro	#info("Some text")	{{velocity}}{{html}} #info("some text") {{/html}}{{/velocity}} InformationWe're using the HTML macro in the example since the #info macro returns HTML content. Information Starting with XE 2.0 you should use the Message Macro to implement this example.
Radeox Macro/XWiki Macros	{code:java} java content {code}	{{code language="java"}} java content {{/code}}

HTML

Information

In XWiki Syntax 2.0 HTML or XHTML must be entered by using the HTML macro whereas in XWiki Syntax 1.0 it's possible to enter HTML directly in the text.

Information

In XWiki Syntax 2.0, by default the HTML macro does not understands wiki syntax (other macros included since it's wiki syntax too). To enable it, use {{html wiki="true"}}.

Velocity/Groovy Scripts

Information

In XWiki Syntax 1.0 it was possible to enter Velocity scripts anywhere directly in the page. This lead to issues for example when the user was involuntarily entering Velocity content. It was also performance hungry for pages not requiring Velocity content. There were several other technical limitations. Thus in XWiki Syntax 2.0 Velocity scripts must be entered using the velocity macro. Same goes for entering Groovy scripts.

#set ($var = "whatever")

{{velocity}}
#set ($var = "whatever")
{{/velocity}}

<%
def var = "whatever"
%>

{{groovy}}
def var = "whatever"
{{/groovy}}

Parameters

With XWiki Syntax 2.0 it's possible to pass parameters to the different syntax elements and also to blocks of text. This is used for example to style them. You can set any parameter key/value pair you want. The XHTML renderer will pass these parameters as XHTML attributes to the underlying XHTML representation of the different syntax elements. In XWiki Syntax 1.0 there was no syntax for passing parameters and the only way to do it was to write XHTML directly in the content as shown in the table below.

<h1 class="myClass" style="myStyle" id="myId">header</h1>

(% class="myClass" style="myStyle" id="myId" %)
= header =

<h1 class="myClass" style="myStyle" id="myId">header</h1>

Other syntaxes

The following other syntaxes are implemented in XWiki Enterprise 1.6 and later:

• JSPWiki
• MediaWiki
• Confluence
• TWiki
• Creole 1.0
• XHTML 1.0

Warning

The implementation for these syntaxes is not fully finished yet. For example support for links is not working perfectly yet. We also need to define if we want to extend the original syntaxes to support XWiki-specific features like ability to link to another sub-wiki.