Ugh, hardcoding the solution to a single bug into the parser? Neen dank u.

BTW Steven is referring to this bug which is not really the same as the problem I'm discussing in my post.

Problem remains, @—@ is overloaded and breaks. I like Timothy's suggestion of '==' for a new strikethrough.

where people have used strikethrough inside words.

Precisely this is what I have in my site. Em-dash is used in Serbian between two years in brackets, like (1890—1891), and in a site dedicated to history, you can imagine how many times it is used like this…

(18901891) blah blah (18901891)

Brunhilda, please read my post again. I'm not proposing to turn em-dash into strikethrough. I'm proposing to make em-dash work properly. You are not using strikethrough inside words today, are you?

How do you make your em-dashes work today?

You are not using strikethrough inside words today, are you?

I am sorry, but I don't understand you. What do you mean by "today"? I am with Wikidot from 2008, and all tis time em-dash is made using two hyphens. As if anything changed. And if there were any changes, I am not aware of it. I still use two hyphens for em-dash effect. Again, what do you mean by "today"?

How do you make your em-dashes work today?

Maybe I do not read you correctly, but you don't read me at all, I am afraid. I already explained how I get the effect of em-dash. I will quote myself:

but in Wikidot, if it is repeated in the same row, it makes strikethrough, so I have to go somewhere to copy the real em-dash (—), to paste it, and in this way to get two em-dashes in the same row and not stricken through text. I did it only when it was necessary, meaning when there were two em-dashes in one row (or paragraph, I am not sure).

Where "if it is repeated in the same row" means this:

--blah blah blah--

which gives:

blah blah blah

Which is completely the same as example of the em-dash between the years I gave earlier.

And "I did it only when it was necessary" means that if there are no two em-dashes in the row, I don't go around copying the real dash and pasting it, but use two hyphens.

If you want to know what I mean by "real em-dash" edit my post and see this: —

I am really sorry for my more than poor English. I am not a native, you know… :P

OK, I did read the comment about copying/pasting em-dash characters instead of using double hyphens, but I forgot it was you who said it…

Like I said, there's nothing in my proposal that will break your sites.

Therefore, I do have — as — all over my site and I am afraid that if you do the first suggestion, I will have a real problem — strikenthrough text all over my site, which would take me ages to change it.

Where you are using -- it will continue to work as an em-dash. Where you are using a real em-dash it will continue to work as an em-dash. When I say "today" I mean, now, at this point in time, i.e. your existing site content.

Do you understand that there's nothing in my proposal that would turn these em-dashes into strikethrough text? I'm proposing the opposite, that is, ensure that double-hyphens work better as em-dashes instead of strike-through.

I'm proposing the opposite, that is, ensure that double-hyphens work better as em-dashes instead of strike-through.

Ok, but how?

I understood that this was your second suggestion. By suggesting to use three hypens for strikethrough, I thought this means that two hyphens will be used only for em-dash.

I understood that this:

One: only recognize a — as strikethrough when it has a word boundary before, or after (at the end).

means to use double hyphens only for strikethrough.

When I say "today" I mean, now, at this point in time, i.e. your existing site content.

I still don't understand why are you stressing today, why is it important how do I do it TODAY as if there were any difference from today and a year ago. As I already said, since I am with Wikidot, two hypens have been used for em-dash, as well as for strikethrough. I really wouldn't know if anything of this was different before March 2008.

Oh, never mind. Really. The point (the bottom line) is that I just wanted to say I think the better solution would be to use three hypens for strikethrough, and leave two hyphens exclusively for em-dash effect.

How do you make your em-dashes work today?

What this means is How do you currently make your em-dashes work within the Wikidot syntax? It doesn't mean specifically today, as opposed to yesterday or tomorrow. In this context, it's one of those funky English phrases that isn't meant to be taken literally.

-Ed

Ed, I understood the sentence perfectly. What I don't understand is WHY Pieter asks me this, because from the very firs moment I knew for Wikidot, I do it with two hyphens. Therefore, there is no point in asking how I am doing it today. I do it today (or currently, now, these days, whatever) in the same way I did it on March 5th 2008 when I created my site at Wikidot… — using two hyphens.

When I read Pieter's post I took "today" to mean "until this point in time" which makes perfectly good sense.

Heh… Great. But why would you ask this, if the syntax was never changed? Two hyphens are used for em-dash now (or today, as you wish), they were used a year ago, and also two years ago. So, I think that the conclusion is pretty obvious: if I used two hyphens for em-dash a year ago that I would do the same today, wouldn't I? Or not?

Sometimes, it is really difficult to understand you, guys… :(

@Brunhilda, my question was (and you've answered it I think), like this: given that -- acts as strikethrough, what technique are you using to enter em-dashes? I guess what you've said is you use double hyphens when there's one em-dash in a line and then replace the double-dashes with real em-dashes when you have two or more…?

I guess what you've said is you use double hyphens when there's one em-dash in a line and then replace the double-dashes with real em-dashes when you have two or more…?

I explained this in my first post.