Soldier Document Upload Check
Cheatsheets
Section Tags
| Type of Section | Section Tag | Example of usage | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Soldier Details | |||
| ##soldierdetails## | ##soldierdetails## | Paste this on the line before the "soldier details" section. | |
| Stories | |||
| ##id##category## | ##1234##battlefield## | "Id" is the regimental number. Put this on the line above all sub-stories related to the defined category (in this case, battlefield). | |
| ##name##category## | ##Alexander Stanley Clingan##battlefield## | Alternative way to identify the soldier. Can also use the "SURNAME, given names" format. | |
| ##id##letter## ##id##category##letter## | ##1234##letter## ##1234##returning##letter## | Letters have special parsing rules, see below for more details. They will automatically be assigned to the "battlefield" category if another one is not put inline. | |
| ##id##links## | ##1234##links## | For a section that only contains standard hyperlinks from Word. | |
| Categories | Categories you can attach to the story tags above | ||
| ##soldier## | ##1234##soldier## | Pre-war stories related to the soldier, his family, home, community, mates, etc | |
| ##battlefield## | ##1234##battlefield## | Stories based on events during the war, and the impacts on his family, by his death, wounding, capture, etc. Other family members at war / impacted. Includes letters from the soldier, or news articles about war events. | |
| ##returning## | ##1234##returning## | Stories about returning home / after the war. Being wounded at Fromelles and surviving or being taken as a POW. | |
| ##legacy## | ##1234##legacy## | Stories about the search and possible discovery of a match, a non match, or his return. What his present family "feels" about him, and the suffering he and family endured. The dedication of the headstone (where identified). Family visits to Fromelles. Where commemorated. | |
| ##requests## | ##1234##requests## | Regarding DNA requests - what we need. | |
| ##contact## | ##1234##contact## | Contact box - FAA, UWCA | |
| Modifiers | These tags can be attached on either side to the above tags, to modify their behaviour. | ||
| ##comment## | ##1234##battlefield##comment## | Used to make the parser ignore this section. Useful if the document has already been uploaded before and you are adding a new sub-story for this soldier. Also useful if you just wish to add your own comments to this file that won't be parsed. | |
| ##focus## | ##1234##battlefield##focus## | If this tag is detected, the parser will only process sections marked with ##focus## and ignore everything else. This is similar to comments, but can be used to quickly and effectively comment out (hide) the rest of the document except one or two particular sections. Useful for debugging one problematic section only. | |
Photos
To create an image for parsing:
- Create a text-box in word.
- Paste the image into the text-box.
- Write the (optional) caption on a new line in normal text, after the image but inside the text-box.
- Write the source in a pair of double square brackets ( [[ source text ]] ). This should be the last thing inside the text-box.
Special Note: WMF and EMFs are impossible to parse for the server, so if it complains about those, please replace the offending image in Word with a jpg version.
Special Text
All special text begins with a colon (:) at the end of the previous paragraph and ends at the next pair of source brackets ([[ optional source-text ]]).
| Special Text Type | Usage | Example | Style | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quote without a source | Quotes | "[content]" [[ ]]or '[content]' [[ ]] | bold, centred, slightly larger font for the quote text | The Source ([[ ]]) needs to be empty to get this styling |
| Quote with a line-source and block-source | Quotes around content, followed by line-author, then new line. Source at the end on its own line. | "[content1]" [author1]\n "[content2]" [author2]\n[[ source ]] | bold, left aligned, standard font-size for the quote text itself | The name (line-source) will be placed right aligned, underneath each quoted line. The block-source will be placed right aligned, below and outside the entire quote block. |
| Mixed Quote | Backticks (grave accent) around content, ended by source | ` content ` [[ source ]] | bold, left aligned, standard font size | Use this if the content has mixed quotes, lots of "he said - she said" on various lines. Put a backtick around the whole lot of it. |
| Poems | Curly braces (aka squigglies) around content, ended by source | { content } [[ source ]] | gold/brown horizontal lines above and below, centred, larger and more spaced out text | The optional poem source is placed outside the bottom of the poem. |
| Unordered list | As it appears in Word, on a new line after a colon, ended by source | * blah blah blaah \n * blah blah blaah \n[[ source ]] | As it appears in Word | This is for lists inside "special text" sections, which means they follow a colon and end with source brackets. You can also use markdown for lists (see below) if it doesn't follow a colon. |
| Telegram | Angle brackets around content, ended by source | < content > [[ source ]] | pinkish-paper background, typed-style font, left aligned if source is included, centred if source is empty | Similar to quote but different styling. |
| Clipping | Percentage signs around content, ended by source | % content % [[ source ]] | brownish-paper background, print-styled font, left aligned | For quotes from newspapers or articles. Clippings are also put through markdown parsing to allow more flexible styling. |
| Do Nothing | A double colon on a line all by itself, followed by empty source. Example is literal. | :: [[]] | This will tell the parser to escape special text treatment and treat the next line as normal body. Insert on a new line between a colon and image. |
Special Text Examples
Quote without a source:
This line is nothing special, but the following lines are: <-- colon marks the start of all special text
"I'm a quote!"
[[]] <-- empty for this styling (centred, bold, larger)
Quote with a line-source and end-source:
"I'm a quote with a line-source!" --Anonymous
"I'm a quote spoken by someone else!" --Anonymous
[[ source for entire set of quotes ]]
Poem:
When tasked to think of an example poem, this is all the poor developer could come up with:
{Once there was a tree by the water,
who paid witness to the lumberjack's daughter,
so in a moment of glee,
it uprooted to flee,
but fell over just in time for the slaughter.}
[[ a budding develo-poet ]]
Unordered list (special text version):
a bunch of text followed by a colon:
- I'm an unordered list!
- Hey I'm part of the list too!
- This is just how I look in Word so there shouldn't be anything special to worry about for me
[[]]
Telegram:
<I'm a telegram!>
[[ Telegram dated 30 August 1916 to ... ]]
Clipping:
% ## Raid by Australians: <-- h2 sized heading
. ### Penrith Boy Mentioned: <-- (h3 sized heading)
.**Mr. Gordon Gilmour, ... despatch as follows --** <-- bolded text
Hardly had the guns settled down to sleep, when ... declare they will follow their officer anywhere <-- regular text
%
[[ Raid by Australians (1918, March 16)... ]]
What's NOT special text
You can make words inside a paragraph bold or italics without resorting to markdown or special text, simply by enclosing the words with <b></b> or <i></i> tags respectively:
This is a normal paragraph with a <b>bold</b> purpose.
This is a normal paragraph that has some <i>italics</i> in it.
Letters
Letters are marked with the section tag ##letter## and the entire section is treated as a letter.
Tags can be in any order and used multiple times, but you only need to use one on a sequence of paragraphs if they're the same type. One body{} tag, for example, can cover 10 paragraphs of the letter.
| Letter Tag | Example | How it's displayed |
|---|---|---|
| pre-info{} | pre-info{This letter was sent by his brother a week later:} | bold, outside and above the letter |
| heading{} | heading{Dec 23, 1915, France} | top of the letter, right aligned. |
| body{} | body{ Dear Mother,... ...hoping you are well.} | normal full-width paragraphs, parsed under the "story" rules, meaning it will recognize special text as above. |
| signature{} | signature{With best love, From your Affectionate Son, Alex.} | after the body, between center and RHS of the letter |
| postscript{} | postscript{P.S. Tell Mark I'll write to him too.} | normal text, after the signature |
| post-info{} | post-info{The above letter was found along with several articles in 19...} | bold, outside and below the letter |
| source{} | source{The Red Cross} | outside and below the letter, on the right hand side, in the site-common source format. |
Markdown
Markdown works similarly to special text, however it is recognized by a pair of double curly braces ( {{ }} ) (non-boxed), or a pair of curly-square braces ({[ ]}) for a "boxed" version with shadow.
You can use it to apply simple formatting that is otherwise difficult for the parser to pick up, like using bold or italic text, headings, tables, invisible tables (to provide data structure).
A more comprehensive cheatsheet can be found here, but below should be enough to get you started.
| markdown example | what it does | |
| Markdown Section (no box) | ||
|---|---|---|
| {{ ... }} | marks an area that contains markdown code, will not display in a box. The tags below should go inside these markers. | |
| Markdown Boxed Section | ||
| {[ ... ]} | marks an area that contains markdown code, but will display inside a box on the site. WARNING: If the word document has a text-box, put these markers insider the text-box as well, or delete the text-box. Otherwise, there will be duplicate text. | |
| Headers | ||
| # text | makes a H1 header (very large) | |
| ## text | makes a H2 header | |
| ### text | makes a H3 header | |
| #### text | makes a H4 header | |
| ##### text | makes a H5 header | |
| ###### text | makes a H6 header (smallest) | |
| Emphasis | ||
| *text* or _text_ | italics, but use <i>word(s)</i> for italics in a normal paragraph, not this | |
| **text** or __text__ | bold, but use <b>word(s)</b> for bold in a normal paragraph, not this | |
| **_text_** or __*text*__ | italic and bold, but use <b><i>word(s)</i></b> for use in a normal paragraph | |
| Lists | ||
| 1. item 1 1. item 2 1. item 3 | ordered lists, **must be on separate line**, can't show it properly here. This won't work in two columns unless you create the lists manually, using 1) blah [tab] 4) blah. Use brackets for the numbers instead of full stops. | |
| * item 1 * item 2 * item 3 | unordered lists, must also be on separate lines | |
| Links | ||
| [ link text ](link-url) | ||
| Tables | https://github.com/adam-p/markdown-here/wiki/Markdown-Cheatsheet#tables | see external example, not easy to show here |
| - | makes a blank row in table if this is found in the first column |
Categories
| Category | How it looks on the site | What kinds of sections would be found here |
|---|---|---|
| Soldier | Soldier, Pre-War | Pre-war stories related to the soldier, his family, home, community, mates, etc |
| Battlefield | On the Battlefield | Stories based on events during the war, and the impacts on his family, by his death, wounding, capture, etc. Other family members at war / impacted. Includes letters from the soldier, or news articles about war events. |
| Returning | Returning Home | Stories about returning home / after the war. Being wounded at Fromelles and surviving or being taken as a POW. |
| Legacy | Legacy, Family, the Search | Stories about the search and possible discovery of a match, a non match, or his return. What his present family "feels" about him, and the suffering he and family endured. The dedication of the headstone (where identified). Family visits to Fromelles. Where commemorated. |
| Requests | Requests for DNA | Regarding DNA requests - what we need. |
| Contact | Contact | Contact box - FAA, UWCA |
Linking to other documents
If you have a link to another subsection in the word document, it won't automatically be picked up by the parser. However, there is a way you can prepare the document so that it does. Each parsed story will be given a relatively predictable slug based on the story subsection's title, and if you can guess that correctly, you can add a hyperlink to that future document, even if it's going to be created during the same upload event that this story will be.
As an example, taking the below text from Alexander Clingan's word document, where "here" actually links to the relevant letters later in the same document:
Two of those letters are transcribed here.
Later in the Clingan document, where the two letters can be found, you can see they are titled:
Two of the Letters from Alexander to his Mother – Egypt & France 1915-1916
To create the URL where that document can be found, the server will take this title and "slugify" it, meaning it will convert it into a form acceptable to a browser.
To slugify a story subsection title:
- Convert everything to lower case
- Remove all symbols (non-words)
- Separate all words by only one hyphen
Applying these steps to the title will yield, adding the root URL for soldier stories:
/soldier-stories/two-of-the-letters-from-alexander-to-his-mother-egypt-france-1915-1916
Which will in fact be the slug for the linked document once it is uploaded (providing there isn't another one of the same name!)
Before and After example
The full conversion would take the original from:
Two of those letters are transcribed here.
To:
Two of those letters are transcribed <a href="/soldier-stories/two-of-the-letters-from-alexander-to-his-mother-egypt-france-1915-1916">here</a>.
This will then be parsed as a link to a document that will work when the target URL has been created. If you click that link and it shows a 404 error, it probably means the slug was incorrect or there was a problem uploading that document and it doesn't exist yet. Send to admin for help.