Allow to mark up messages in for example Markdown or LaTeX

[paulmenzel]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Instant messages have become more than short messages, but are now used for longer texts too. That requires some formatting features. Colleagues, especially mathematicians, using Zulip like the possibility to use Markdown to format text and even add blocks of LaTeX code, which is then displayed.

Describe the solution you'd like
I’d be great if converse.js would support marking up text too.

Describe alternatives you've considered
For a non-centralized environment like XMPP without only one client, it’s hard to find a standard, so another solution would be to do it on the server somehow. For example, there is an outdated(?) Prosody module mod_latex.

Additional context
Zulip says for LaTeX they are using KaTeX.

[jcbrand]

For markdown-like support, we have XEP-0393 and an associated ticket: #1083

@XaviFP is working on that currently, so we'll likely have support in the near term.

LaTex support is something which I think can be done as a community-plugin. I don't see a place for it in the core repo, since it adds a new dependency that most users don't need.

[paulmenzel]

For markdown-like support, we have XEP-0393 and an associated ticket: #1083

@XaviFP is working on that currently, so we'll likely have support in the near term.

Nice. Thank you for the pointer. Quickly skimming XEP-0393, it is missing some formatting options like lists. Sorry, I am new to XMPP, but should a new XEP be proposed then for the extension?

LaTex support is something which I think can be done as a community-plugin. I don't see a place for it in the core repo, since it adds a new dependency that most users don't need.

Sounds good. Should this ticket be dedicated to that task then?

[jcbrand]

should a new XEP be proposed then for the extension?

That XEP is still in Proposed state, so you could instead propose to add the feature to that XEP.

If you're interested in doing this, write to the XSF standards mailing list (standards@xmpp.org) to gather feedback. The author of the XEP will likely respond.

Should this ticket be dedicated to that task then?

This issue tracker is for the core app and not the community plugins. Can you please make a similar ticket there? Then I'll close this one.

https://github.com/conversejs/community-plugins

[ecxod]

For markdown-like support, we have XEP-0393 and an associated ticket: #1083

@XaviFP is working on that currently, so we'll likely have support in the near term.

LaTex support is something which I think can be done as a community-plugin. I don't see a place for it in the core repo, since it adds a new dependency that most users don't need.

It is true that 99% of the population does not use algebra, yet we need algebra. But there is https://latex.js.org/ so we will not give up hope.