\author Charles R. Childers
\title RDML Handbook
\copyright (pd)2006
\format-html rdml.css


\t Historical Background
\p During the development of RetroForth 9.0, it was decided that we should
have a set of tools to build the documentation in a variety of formats. We
wanted to avoid propriatary tools, and so began laying down some groundwork
for what has become the \i Retro \i Documentation \i Markup \i Language.

\p This is the second generation of these tools. The first markups we used
were more varied and complex. This approach has proven much more satisfactory
and is quite useful and still maintains a simple structure. We hope that
 you find it useful.


\t The structure
\p An RDML document has a simple structure. An example follows.

\pre
\n \format-html stylesheet.css
\n 
\n \t Section Title
\n \p A paragraph of text.
\n \p Another paragraph with a \br break in the line.
\n 
\n \pre
\n \n A line of text without format or parsing
\n \n These are good for code samples
\n \-pre
\n 
\n \end
\-pre

\p Within a paragraph you can also use some formatting markups.

\pre
\n \b This \b is \b bold \b text
\n \i And \i this \i is \i italics
\-pre

\p Links and images are supported in HTML format; the URL is given in
   text format.

\pre
\n \link http://google.com Google!
\n \image http://www.google.com/intl/en/images/logo.gif
\-pre

\p Not all export formats will support these markups; when not
   supported, they will be ignored. There are also a few
   markups that can be used, but which are optional at this
   time.

\pre
\n \author     Your name
\n \title      Name of document
\n \copyright  Copyright notice
\n \comment    The rest of the line is a comment and 
\n \comment    will not be displayed
\-pre

\end