Add underline feature

[dotancohen]

Currently Zim supports Bold, Italic, and Highlight text formatting options. I feel that Underline is missing. Please add it. Thanks.

[Jaap Karssenberg (jaap.karssenberg)]

This also relates to the discussion about extending available style. Will not add new styles until a proper extension mechanism has materialized.

One of the reasons is that I want to be able support several source formats, so for now I try to stick to a smallest common denominator.

[dotancohen (dotancohen)]

> One of the reasons is that I want to be able support several source formats

I think that this is a great idea. You might want to take a look at this project, which supports Zim and several other source formats:
http://notefinder.co.cc/doku.php

I have filed some bugs on that project, and the developer is very responsive.

[Jaap Karssenberg (jaap.karssenberg)]

I will stick to 3 default styles. Probably will rename to "strong", "emphasis" and "mark". Should be customizable whether mark uses highlight or underline.

Rationale is that I feel that extending the number of styles turns zim into a layout tool, which it is not.

[dotancohen (dotancohen)]

> Should be customizable whether mark uses highlight or underline.

I personally use underline (outside of Zim) for emphasizing leader text, like this:
_Note:_ This is a note.

I use highlight to emphasize important bits of otherwise unnotable text:
This is an ^important^ word.

I combine them:
_Note:_ This is an ^important^ note.

Therefore, so long as the user can configure the formatting of "strong", "emphasis", and "mark", then I suppose the issue is moot. However, do not assume that the developer's preferred formating for each style will be logical to different users. People have workflows and need to be compatible with conventions used in other software, within their organization, and personal preferences. If my organization dictates that the word "Note:" must be underlined in all company documents, then I cannot adjust to _not_ having that convention in my personal documents, Zim included.

Until Zim supports the configuration of styles, this bug should remain open. Please reopen, Jaap, as this is a priority bug due to the reasons stated in the previous paragraph.

[Jaap Karssenberg (jaap.karssenberg)]

Configuration of styles _is_ supported using a config file. The request to be able to do this from the GUI is tracked in bug #230160, so no need to re-open this bug. This bug was a specific request to add an extra style to resolve the underline versus highlight issue.

[codemonkey (codemonkey-interthingy)]

Another $0.02...

The underline style is a very typical and important style for people to use and they tend to expect it to be available. Zim uses Ctrl-U and an "underline" icon so it's confusing to people when it doesn't underline. Given that underline is much more useful than the current mark behaviour, I think that Zim should default to using an actual underline style.

OTOH, the mark ability (or highlighting, as I would call it -- like a highlight marker) is also quite useful in an app like this and I would vote to add one more style to support it independently.

Jaap, I did read your comments regarding adding more styles above, but I still wish you would consider this. It's not about making Zim into a "layout" app, it is just some very useful functionality. Underline is very common and highlighting is very useful to, well, highlight important passages (for example, the item that I need to do next on my todo list, or some TBD items that I need to ask questions about, etc.).

Thanks

[vinnie (vinniec)]

I think it would be appropriate to reconsider this thought.
I normally use the mark as a color, now I need to to underline individual letters of certain words (phonetic issues) and I could not in any way.
I can not change the style, I'd lose the rest of the formatting.
Please add the underline.

[Dee Waters (deewat7)]

I agree with Vinnie. I began using Zim at 0.48 and now am up to 0.56. I've been confused about this from the beginning (the on-line manual says "text can be bold italic or highlighted", the desktop manual says "bold, and italic underline verbatim"); the icon looks like an underline. If I had to pick one, it would be highlight -- but I would find both very useful.

So can the addition of a fourth text marking icon and behavior at least make it to the wishlist?

[pvanb (p-vanbreugel)]

I would like to add my voice to the request to have a style 'underline' and a style 'highlight'. Jaap, I see your point about not making this a layout tool. However, I don't think this should be considered a layout feature, but a 'Note taking feature'.

In support of the latter, consider other note taking apps or the note or review features in e.g., pdf readers; commonly they include options to underline and to highlight text. This is because for many people they serve two different purposes. One example was already given in an earlier comment.

For me, I underline keywords or phrases (i.e., to help me quickly find the emphasis when reading back later), while I use highlighting to mark text that needs follow up (i.e., when working on the notes, those are the sections that need extra attention). In terms of layout, in the final notes, I will leave the underlined sections, but the highlights should all have been removed.

For now, I have changed the config file so header 6 will highlight text. That works for me as I never use more then 5 header levels. But the disadvantage is that the highlighted sections will appear in my TOC.

[pvanb (p-vanbreugel)]

Sorry, that should have been header 5, there is no header 6 of course