"Structured text is text that uses indentation and simple
symbology to indicate the structure of a document.  

A structured string consists of a sequence of paragraphs separated by
one or more blank lines.  Each paragraph has a level which is defined
as the minimum indentation of the paragraph.  A paragraph is a
sub-paragraph of another paragraph if the other paragraph is the last
preceding paragraph that has a lower level.

Special symbology is used to indicate special constructs:

- A single-line paragraph whose immediately succeeding paragraphs are lower
  level is treated as a header.

- A paragraph that begins with a '-', '*', or 'o' is treated as an
  unordered list (bullet) element.

- A paragraph that begins with a sequence of digits followed by a
  white-space character is treated as an ordered list element.

- A paragraph that begins with a sequence of sequences, where each
  sequence is a sequence of digits or a sequence of letters followed
  by a period, is treated as an ordered list element.

- A paragraph with a first line that contains some text, followed by
  some white-space and '--' is treated as
  a descriptive list element. The leading text is treated as the
  element title.

- Sub-paragraphs of a paragraph that ends in the word 'example' or the
  word 'examples', or '::' is treated as example code and is output as is::

    <table border=0>
      <tr>
        <td> Foo 
    </table>

- Text enclosed single quotes (with white-space to the left of the
  first quote and whitespace or puctuation to the right of the second quote)
  is treated as example code.

  For example: '&lt;dtml-var foo>'.

- Text surrounded by '*' characters (with white-space to the left of the
  first '*' and whitespace or puctuation to the right of the second '*')
  is *emphasized*.

- Text surrounded by '**' characters (with white-space to the left of the
  first '**' and whitespace or puctuation to the right of the second '**')
  is made **strong**.

- Text surrounded by '_' underscore characters (with whitespace to the left 
  and whitespace or punctuation to the right) is made _underlined_.

- Text encloded by double quotes followed by a colon, a URL, and concluded
  by punctuation plus white space, *or* just white space, is treated as a
  hyper link.

  For example, '&quot;Zope&quot;:http://www.zope.org/' is interpreted as 
  "Zope":http://www.zope.org/ 

  *Note: This works for relative as well as absolute URLs.*

- Text enclosed by double quotes followed by a comma, one or more spaces,
  an absolute URL and concluded by punctuation plus white space, or just
  white space, is treated as a hyper link.

  For example: '&quot;mail me&quot;, mailto:amos@digicool.com' is 
  interpreted as "mail me", mailto:amos@digicool.com 

- Text enclosed in brackets which consists only of letters, digits,
  underscores and dashes is treated as hyper links within the document.

  For example: '"As demonstrated by Smith &#091;12&#093; this technique ..."' 

  Is interpreted as: "As demonstrated by Smith [12] this technique"

  Together with the next rule this allows easy coding of references or end notes.

- Text enclosed in brackets which is preceded by the start of a line, two
  periods and a space is treated as a named link. For example:


  '.. &#091;12&#093; "Effective Techniques" Smith, Joe ...'

  Is interpreted as 

.. [12] "Effective Techniques" Smith, Joe ...

  *Note:  see the &lt;A NAME="12"&gt; in the HTML source.*

  Together with the previous rule this allows easy coding of references or
  end notes."

See also: TextFormattingRules