Exact semantics of formatting characters aside, it is best to define plain text as a stateless stream. The characters you're proposing require a decoder to keep state, therefore they won't do. <TIC>At most you may ask for *U+E1001 COMBINING ITALICIZER *U+E1003 COMBINING BOLDIFIER after all, we already have U+0332 COMBINING LOW LINE and U+0336 COMBINING LONG STROKE OVERLAY for <u> and <s> resp, thus adding their counterparts for <i> and <b> will merely complete the set. </TIC>
Leo On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 8:18 AM, William_J_G Overington < [email protected]> wrote: > > Blocks of boring plain text, no italics or effects any more complex than > justification, simple notes written all in one font with no formatting to > speak of etc. > > > I am wondering if it is considered a good idea to define into Plane 14 > some formatting characters, so that plain text could in the future contain > italics and so on. > > > For example, written here with an asterisk included as I seem to remember > that that is the convention so as to avoid a suggested new character being > mistaken as an existing character, how about the following. > > > *U+E1000 FORMAT NOT ITALICS > > > *U+E1001 FORMAT ITALICS > > > *U+E1002 FORMAT NOT BOLD > > > *U+E1003 FORMAT BOLD > > > Traditionally such a suggestion would be refuted as out of scope for plain > text: use of markup would be suggested. > > > Yet that was then, this is now: ideas of what can, or should, be encoded > in plain text have changed with time and could usefully continue to change > where that is of use to consumers. > > > I have often wondered why use of markup is regarded as such a requirement > when the capabilities of plain text could so easily be enhanced. Expanding > the capabilities of plain text would increase interoperability. > > > William Overington > > > 26 March 2015 > > > > _______________________________________________ > Unicode mailing list > [email protected] > http://unicode.org/mailman/listinfo/unicode > >
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