Ecma-48 proposed styling controls update updated & math expression representation proposal update

[Doug Ewell]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:

>> How is this handled in Word, or in any other WYSIWYG editor?
>
> They use specialized formats of the clipboard data, where the styles
> and typefaces are preserved.  See
>
> https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/dataxchg/clipboard-formats

I know the internal format is different. Marius wasn’t talking about that. He was talking about the user experience of copying and pasting styled text when the styling data is invisible, and appearing to claim this was an intractable problem.

Alternatively, why is the stated user-experience problem for ECMA-48 not a problem for Word?

>> What about in WordPerfect for DOS, where different foreground and
>> background colors in text mode represented bold, italics,
>> underlining, etc.?
>
> You mean, copying from some part of WordPerfect document to another
> part of the same document?  Because DOS supported only one program at
> at ime, and didn't have a clipboard (or anything similar) at all.

OK, good point. What about WordPerfect for Windows, or WordPad, or [pick your favorite tool from a non-Windows environment] where the formatting isn’t visible?

>> Did we not have any way to manipulate styled text before HTML came
>> along?
>
> Yes, of course.  RichText comes to mind.

And we were able to copy and paste styled text! Sure, sometimes the formatting gets screwed up, and still does. But it was not a hopeless and unsolved problem, fixed only when in-band formatting using ASCII characters came into vogue.

--
Doug Ewell, CC, ALB | Lakewood, CO, US | ewellic.org