update re format directive

1 files changed, 13 insertions, 20 deletions

diff --git a/doc/todo/syntax_highlighting.mdwn b/doc/todo/syntax_highlighting.mdwn
index b5d083ba5..87ba77cad 100644
--- a/doc/todo/syntax_highlighting.mdwn
+++ b/doc/todo/syntax_highlighting.mdwn
@@ -1,9 +1,13 @@
 There's been a lot of work on contrib syntax highlighting plugins. One should be
 picked and added to ikiwiki core.
 
-Ideally, it should support both converting whole source files into wiki
+We want to support both converting whole source files into wiki
 pages, as well as doing syntax highlighting as a preprocessor directive 
-(which is either passed the text, or reads it from a file).
+(which is either passed the text, or reads it from a file). But,
+the [[ikiwiki/directive/format]] directive makes this easy enough to 
+do if the plugin only supports whole source files. So, syntax plugins
+do no really need their own preprocessor directive, unless it makes
+things easier for the user.
 
 ## The big list of possibilities
 
@@ -105,24 +109,12 @@ like this:
      	return;
      }
 
-## format directive
+## format directive and comments
 
-Rather than making syntax highlight plugins have to provide a preprocessor
-directive as well as handling whole source files, perhaps a generic format
-directive could be used:
-
-	\[[!format pl """..."""]]
-
-That would run the text through the pl htmlizer, from the syntax hightligh
-plugin. OTOH, if "rst" were given, it would run the text through the rst
-htmlizer. So, more generic, allows mixing different types of markup on one
-page, as well as syntax highlighting. Does require specifying the type of
-format, instead of allowing it to be guessed (which some syntax highlighters
-can do). (This directive is now implemented..)
-
-Hmm, this would also allow comments inside source files to have mdwn
-embedded in them, without making the use of mdwn a special case, or needing
-to postprocess the syntax highlighter output to find comments.
+Hmm, the [[ikiwiki/directive/format]] directive would also allow comments
+inside source files to have mdwn embedded in them, without making the use
+of mdwn a special case, or needing to postprocess the syntax highlighter
+output to find comments.
 
 	/* \[[!format mdwn """
 
@@ -130,4 +122,5 @@ to postprocess the syntax highlighter output to find comments.
 
 	"""]] */
 
-Note that this assumes that directives are expanded in source files.
+Note that this assumes that directives are expanded in source files,
+which has its own set of problems.