I think if at render time or in the parser number/number uses one of the other Unicode characters or the html approach to display is a reasonable approach. The advantage of the Unicode symbol is its a simple replacement and even the html is less verbose. On/off to start with as you prefer.
- However I think this would be the opportunity to introduce a mechanism to allow select characters to be replaced with a Unicode equivalent during parsing.
- If built correctly it will be performant.
I can for see other opportunities such as alternate bullets, and other special symbols opening other possibilities.
- You could see this as partially opening the parser to allow a little hacking.
- I am sure our smart community will discover other simple replacements who’s only impact is in the final render. Unicode has a wide range of codes that can alter other codes. Many of which are available with the “noto sans” font (short for no tofu). Something we could consider adding to the “font family”
- A way to escape or disable this feature may also be useful.
- Multi-character replacement may be helpful such as replace
+-with±basically it permits “one or more” keyboard entered characters to be mapped to “one or more” Unicode characters. See its wide range of uses here
I see an increasing number of cases where people are modifying core tiddlers (especially myself, but others too), or introducing new ones to handle edge cases like this. This includes now redefining core widgets with custom widgets. I think there is value to instead making it hackable and allow multiples of this possible without clashes.
- I think if we don’t provide a hackability, we may find a little more clashes occurring.
I do think we underutilise Unicode a lot, and can see things like editor dropdowns for the selection and insertion of nominated symbols, including Smilies, sentiments, would be helpful.
- On windows I have started using
win+.for this but I don’t get to curate what is available.