XWiki Rendering Framework

General Architecture

• Parser: Parses some textual input in a given syntax and generate a XDOM object which is an AST representing the input into structured blocks.
• Renderer: Takes a XDOM as input and generates some output.
• Transformation: Takes some XDOM and modifies it to generate a modified XDOM.

See Advanced Architecture for more details.

Features

• Parsers for multiple syntaxes.
• Offers both a streaming API (useful for rendering large content) and an XDOM-based API (generates an intermediary AST on which transformations - such as macros - can be applied)
• Round trip between XWiki Syntax 2.0 and XHTML. This features allows for example to have a strong WYSIWYG editor that doesn't loose information when editing wiki pages. Another use case is the ability to import Office documents in HTML and transform them into XWiki Syntax 2.0 without loosing information.
• Ability to get the result of the parsing as an AST tree (called XDOM) which can then be used to get access to all structured elements from the flat text input.
• Ability to transform the XDOM through a Transformation (list of of available Transformations).
• Macro support (list of available Macros). Note that Macro support is implemented as a Transformation (see Architecture).
• Supports wiki syntax in link labels even for input syntaxes that don't support it.
• Automatic conversion from any of the supported input syntaxes to XWiki Syntax 2.0 or to XHTML.
• Strong Parsers:
  • Based on Grammars (JavaCC)
  • Fix user mistakes (not closed or overlapping markup elements...).
  • Each block element (paragraph, table cells, list items, headers...) can spread over multiply lines.
  • Support for groups, i.e. ability to include content inside other content (equivalent of DIV in HTML).
  • All elements can have parameters associated to them.
• Been used in XWiki Enteprise for several years and is stable and performant.
• Can be used standalone since it's independent of other XWiki projects such as XWiki Platform, XWiki Enterprise, etc.

The XWiki Rendering modules are all released under the LGPL license.

Supported Syntaxes

Input Syntax

It means there's a Parser that can be used to parse this syntax into a XDOM object

Output Syntax

It means there's a Renderer that can be used to render an XDOM into this syntax

Name	Id	Input Syntax?	Output Syntax?	Description
XWiki 2.0	xwiki/2.0
XWiki 2.1	xwiki/2.1			Experimental at this stage which means it can still change before it's released as final.
XHTML 1.0	xhtml/1.0
HTML 4.01	html/4.01
Plain Text	plain/1.0			Print all than can be rendered in a simple notepad-like editor such as words, special symbols and spaces. It also generates link labels for links that have no labels and print the generated labels. Last it provides very basic formatting (e.g. separates paragraphs with new lines and separates list items with new lines).
DocBook 4.4	docbook/4.4			Available in XWiki Rendering 3.2+ only.
XDOM XML Current	xdom+xml/curent			Available in XWiki Rendering 3.3+ only.
XDOM XML 1.0	xdom+xml/1.0			Available in XWiki Rendering 3.3+ only.
XWiki 1.0	xwiki/1.0
Confluence	confluence/1.0
JSPWiki	jspwiki/1.0
TWiki	twiki/1.0
MediaWiki	mediawiki/1.0
Creole 1.0	creole/1.0
Markdown	markdown/1.0			MarkdownPapers format. Available in XWiki Rendering 3.4+ only.
APT	apt/1.0			Available in XWiki Rendering 4.3+ only.

Demo

This simple demo converts your input written in one syntax to another syntax.

Documentation

• Getting started tutorial
• Javadocs
• Advanced Architecture
• Extending XWiki Rendering
• Available Macros
• Available Transformations

Download

Check the getting started tutorial which contains all information to access the XWiki Rendering binaries.

Source files are available here.

Projects using XWiki Rendering

• XWiki Enterprise: of course...
• eXo Platform: Uses both the XWiki Rendering and the XWiki WYSIWYG Editor to provide a simple wiki inside their tools
• Wikbook: Uses XWiki Rendering to generate DocBook from content written using a wiki syntax
• Jahia: Uses XWiki Rendering in its "Jahia Wiki module"
• Grail XWiki Rendering Plugin: Grails plugin that allows to convert text using the XWiki Rendering Framework.

Alternatives

Here are some libraries similar to XWiki Rendering in purpose:

• WikiModel: XWiki Rendering actually uses WikiModel and extends it
• Eclipse Mylyn WikiText
• Maven Doxia: Note that XWiki Rendering has a basic bridge to Doxia