Export chat: in plaintext mode, use < > to more clearly differentiate between the username of the speaker vs the mentions

[nekohayo]

Steps to reproduce

1. Click the room name at the top of the UI
2. "Export chat", choose plaintext format

Outcome

What did you expect?

Output like this:

2022-11-15, 09:44:48 - bob left the room
2022-11-16, 22:59:22 - <jeff> alice: if you will need me to emergency smoke-test something with your branch this month?
2022-11-18, 08:28:16 - <alice> jeff: thanks, I've been testing with my xml from stable and finding a billion bugs.

What happened instead?

Hard-to-read (or to process) output like this:

2022-11-15, 9:44:48 a.m. - bob left the room
2022-11-16, 10:59:22 p.m. - jeff: alice: if you will need me to emergency smoke-test something with your branch this month?
2022-11-18, 8:28:16 a.m. - alice: jeff: thanks, I've been testing with my xml from stable and finding a billion bugs.

The <speaker username> format would make this visually and programmatically much clearer, quite similar to the kind of logs you'd get from an IRC client. Otherwise the stack of foo: bar: baz: whatever: makes it hard to quickly spot who is saying what when reading logs.

Interestingly enough, the < > format also gets parsed and colored when you use the markdown syntax to highlight the file:

(it's maybe not perfect, because if there are multiple words / spaces in the speaker's name, then it will use two colors in gedit/gtksourceview, but that's still way better than nothing for me)

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Note that the timestamps in my expected output respect the 24h time format setting, while they currently do not in practice. This is issue #23838.

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Operating system

Fedora 37

Browser information

Firefox 107

URL for webapp

app.element.io

Application version

Element version: 1.11.15, Olm version: 3.2.12

Homeserver

matrix.org

Will you send logs?

No

[uhoreg]

Interestingly enough, the < > format also gets parsed and colored when you use the markdown syntax to highlight the file:

FWIW, the reason it gets coloured is that in Markdown, < > forces the contents to be considered to be a link.

[grimhilt]

It seems that in your example you use "<>" on the sender, wouldn't be more logical to use it on the mention?
Could using "@" also be a good option?

[rj9911]

Hello @uhoreg @nekohayo Can I take up this issue?

[uhoreg]

I think that this issue may require some discussion regarding how exactly the lines should be formatted (is < > what we really want, or do we want something else? Maybe something configurable?) You can choose to work on this issue exactly as-requested here, but be prepared to iterate on it when you submit your PR. Aside from that, I don't think there's anything preventing anyone from working on this.

[nawarajshah]

in the example, you not only use < > but there is also a color, is that color because of the link or just a color only to differentiate the user's role?

[nawarajshah]

I have sent PR, please review

[rameshsinghppc]

I have sent PR, please review