Ascii formatting characters deviate from textile formatting

[beerfan]

The textile shortcuts which the Gajim ascii formatting is, presumably, based on use the underscore character to denote emphasis (e.g., _emphasis_) while Gajim uses it to underline text and uses a forward slash character to denote emphasis.

See this textile shortcut reference. http://rpc.textpattern.com/help/?item=textile_comments

To complicate matters, Google Talk and perhaps other programs use the textile shortcuts as they were intended so users of Google Talk communicating with users of Gajim will see different formatting. There are also many complaints about the forward slash character disrupting code snippets in conversation.

The formatting shortcuts should be changed to match textile and Google Talk.

[jim++]

"There are ACE options for that: ascii_formatting and

show_ascii_formatting_chars."

show_ascii_formatting_chars has been set to True by default some days ago so you now see all characters contact has written even when formatting is used.

For all possible formatting we have to do XHTML-IM (See #316), not anything else.

[anonymous]

I think there may be some confusion here. I'm not asking for an option to

enable or disable ascii formatting which is what the existing ACE options provide.

I read through JEP-0071: XHTML-IM but I do not see that it defines any ascii characters which are to be transformed into XHTML markup. It seems that this is either up to the client to handle or is defined elsewhere.

Therefore, Gajim (presumably based on the spec) arbitrarily transforms *bold* into <span style="font-weight:bold">bold</span> and _emphasis_ into <span style="font-style:italic">emphasis</span>.

What I am arguing is that other software, textile and Google Talk to name a few, use ascii characters to format differently than Gajim does and that it's probably best to emulate their use.

• = strong or bold

_ = emphasis or italic

/ = nothing

[anonymous]

Oops...the previous should have read:

Therefore, Gajim (presumably based on the spec) arbitrarily transforms *bold* into <span style="font-weight:bold">bold</span> and _underline_ into <span style="text-decoration:underline">underline</span>

[Liorithiel]

No, XHTML-IM is to send xhtml data through jabber, and this will resolve

all problems - we won't have to arbitrary assign meanings to characters, just make some buttons like "Bold", "Underline" and user will have to click or use keyboard shortcuts like in word processor.

BTW, Psi uses also //, ** and __ for formatting, just like Gajim. There are people who talk with Psi users much more than with GTalk users. Psi was earlier, it is why probably Gajim has these chars and not another. Afair tkabber does the same. So we have 2:2 :-).

[beerfan]

If Gajim isn't the ONLY client using this method then we have some debate

:-)

I guess in the end it means some text will display as underlined instead of italicized if it comes from GTalk. :-/

[beerfan]

Oops. Perhaps I just realized what jim++ was trying to say.

If text is transformed with XHTML before it is sent then it doesn't matter if I use /emphasis/ for italics as it will be transformed into <span style ="font-style:italic">emphasis</span> anyway and the client on the other end won't know the difference. I guess my concern is a non-issue if this is the case.

[jim++]

Seems everybody agree now.