Encoding italic

[wjgo_10009@btinternet.com via Unicode]

Asmus Freytag wrote;

> Other schemes, like a VS per code point, also suffer from being 
> different in philosophy from "standard" rich text approaches. Best 
> would be as standard extension to all the messaging systems (e.g. a 
> common markdown language, supported by UI).     A./

Yet that claim of what would be best would be stateful and statefulness 
is the very thing that Unicode seeks to avoid.

Plain text is the basic system and a Variation Selector mechanism after 
each character that is to become italicized is not stateful and can be 
implemented using existing OpenType technology.

If an organization chooses to develop and use a rich text format then 
that is a matter for that organization and any changing of formatting of 
how italics are done when converting between plain text and rich text is 
the responsibility of the organization that introduces its rich text 
format.

Twitter was just an example that someone introduced along the way, it 
was not the original request.

Also this is not only about messaging. Of primary importance is the 
conservation of texts in plain text format, for example, where a printed 
book has one word italicized in a sentence and the text is being 
transcribed into a computer.

William Overington
Friday 25 January 2019