Ability to prevent markdown symbols from changing formatting

Feature Requests
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1

Hello!

The Problem
Currently, there is no way to prevent/escape text being recognized as markdown, and having its formatting respectively changed.
If, for example, the user would like a block of text to begin with “#,” it will automatically be converted into a heading.

The Solution
Ideal solutions:

  1. Have an escape character (e.g. \), that, when placed before a string of text (e.g. beginning with ** or #), will ensure that proceeding text does not have its formatting changed.
  2. When text has its formatting changed (as markdown is recognized), revert to original text if the user presses CTRL + Z (an example of this functionality can be found on witeboard.com).

Thank you for reading, hope you have a great day!

2

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
I’m currently having problem dealing with inline formating (*,_, ~~). Sometime I have to write a documentation with underscores and asterisk in it like for example I would type “sm_data_init” in which anytype would remove the underscore and italize the word “data” which is not my intention.

Describe the solution you’d like
I hope there would an option to choose whether to use inline formating or an escape syntax similar to markdown like backslash(\)

Additional context
My only workaround here is to use the Android version of anytype since it seems that it doesn’t recognize inline formatting symbols

3

Hey, I’m merging your post with this one, as it seems you are requesting the same feature:

4

I am also very interested in this. However to add my two cents, I’d rather not have to write an escape character every time I am trying to add an underscore or an asterisk…

I think it would be preferable to turn text into bold, italic, or otherwise by using a slash command e.g. /italic /bold or using hotkeys e.g. Ctrl+I or Ctrl+U and then otherwise just let characters be as people have typed them.

Cheers

5

Hi,

Is there any workaround for now, to be able to insert a double dash without using android ?
I’ve tried :

  • pasting plain text using ctrl+shift+v,
  • undo
  • insert one or some spaces between the dashes, and using backspace or delete key to remove them
  • use inline code formatting.

None of them will work.

6

WHAT DO YOU RECOMMEND

An option to keep text just as it’s written without applying markdown editing, e.g. (underscore)text(underscore) → text

HOW COULD IT BE DONE

Not too sure how this could be done, but perhaps an option to toggle markdown for the block?

REAL WORLD USE CASES

Having markdown automatically apply prevents me from being able to use anytype to just write whatever I want or record. For example, if I want to make note of a file naming convention or copy the name of a specific file that uses underscores, it just converts it to italics, and I don’t have the ability to retain the original text.

9

Same here on my side
Variable names in software are often written with many underscores, what annoys me very much if im writing something down using these names

10

Same here: _ text _ transforms the text into italics (with disappearing underlines) which is not what I want.

11

Maybe a good solution I know from other apps that e.g. automatically convert "1. " into a numbered list:

  1. user types a ‘special’ markdown character without the intention to write markdown, e.g. `# _ `` etc
  2. Anytypes automatically converts the ‘special’ character into its markdown equivalent, as usual
  3. (this is my suggested solution:) User presses Ctrl-Z (undo)
  4. Anytype reverts the markdown and just leaves the originally entered ‘special’ character
  5. Anytype has a way to internally capture the fact that this ‘special’ character is meant to be interpreted as-as, not as markdown
12

I think the solutions proposed could be better. If implemented, I think once the text has its formatting changed (as markdown is recognized), revert to original text if the user presses Backspace. This is how notion does it and it is better than a shortcut because you can replicate it on mobile. It also feels very natural- “Oh a mistake has been made let me remove it via backspace”

13

WHAT IS THE BUG

Typing “`*`” on the start of a newline converts it to a dotpoint.

AFAIK there no way to type a lone * without it being formatted in some way

HOW TO REPRODUCE IT

  1. Type `*` at the start of a new block
  2. Type a space after it

THE EXPECTED BEHAVIOR

Not converting it to a dotpoint or providing some way to type a star that does not count as a markdown character

SYSTEM INFORMATION

OS:
linux mint 21.2
Anytype Version:
v.0.35.2
15

WHAT IS THE BUG

Words between two underlines (_), will always be turned into italic style.
And it can’t be escaped (by typing \ before _).
Other similar style shortcuts seem to have the same problem.

HOW TO REPRODUCE IT

Just type any paired underlines, like _xxxx_.

THE EXPECTED BEHAVIOR

Special characters should be able to be escaped, eg: \_xxx\_ should be _xxxx_, not xxxx.

SYSTEM INFORMATION

  • Device:
    Macbook Pro 2019
  • OS:
    Ventura 13.4
  • Anytype Version:
    v.0.33.3
17

There’s no way to use * and other Markdown triggers without it changing the style of the text and disappearing.
For example I want to write:
213
Without the 1 being italic and the * disappearing.
In discord and most of the platforms who use md you can use / before the char that changes the style, but it doesn’t seem to work like that on Anytype, if there’s no way to that I’d suggest to add the / option.

18

Same issue here. The _ in code block should not be render. However _ between different blocks are still rendering to italic, which doesn’t obey markdown STANDARD . This is not the only one that does not obey markdown conventions, which makes things really weird.

19

This was added to task tracker.

21

I tried checking on what @Razor said, but simply couldn’t find any mentions of “formatting fixes” or anything related to that.
This is the only problem I’ve met yet, but it REALLY annoys me, because there’s no way to bypass it.
Hopefully it will get fixed.

22

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I often find myself using numbered headings, especially when I take notes for some material that has numbered sections and would like to keep the structure to know what section this refers to.

Currently, typing "1. " at the start of a heading turns it into a numbered list.

Describe the solution you’d like

Disable the numbered list command for headings.

I think the numbered list shortcut is very rarely needed in headings and when it is, converting to a numbered list via the command menu, the action menu or by removing the heading first (backspace) and then using the shortcut is good enough. Numbered headings however are a very common scenario I think.

2021-09-01-03-52-36.mp4

26

I’m coming here from an attempted bug report. To summarize, my idea is to use keys like +, - or # to set a block type only if they are typed on a new line, when the block type is not yet set. After that you would be able to type whatever you want without risking to convert anything. That would be easy to implement and, I think, an intuitive solution.