How do I stop the visual editor from escaping backslashes?

[toepfernils]

Description

Hello!
I´m using quarto (version 1.4.550) in R Studio (version 2023.12.1). Output is pdf, latex engine is tinytex installed by quarto.

I like using the visual editor as it suggests possible cross references when typing "@" and more. But I have the problem, that when I want to use latex in text, like for instance \, for non breaking space, the visual editor doesn´t realise it is latex and escapes the backslash with another backslash (visible in the source editor).
I know "cmd + space"-shortcut solves the non-breaking space issue well, but there are many situations were using latex backslashes come in handy.

The latest one is this: I want to reference R and add the R version into the cross reference like this:

"All analyses were performed in R (version 4.3.3; R CoreTeam, 2024)."

In quarto you can add text into a (cross) reference by simply writing it into the square brackets, only that the semicolon has a special function (listing references) so it would break the syntax if used like this:

All analyses were performed in R [version 4.3.3; @R-base].

output: "All analyses were performed in R [version 4.3.3; R CoreTeam (2024)]."

... which is just an in-text citation surrounded by plain text.

In the source editor this is simply solved by escaping the semicolon with a backslash like this:

All analyses were performed in R [version 4.3.3\; @R-base]

output: "All analyses were performed in R (version 4.3.3; R CoreTeam, 2024)."

When switching from source editor to visual editor the backslash will get removed. Adding the backslash in the visual editor doesn´t help either, because it will be escaped with another backslash automatically like I mentioned in the beginning:

All analyses were performed in R [version 4.3.3\\; @R-base]

output: "All analyses were performed in R [version 4.3.3; R CoreTeam (2024)]."

Again not what I want.

Finally my question: Is there a way in R Studio Quarto Visual Editor to stop backslashes from getting escaped with a second backslash? (I know I could use VS Code with extensions but I don´t want to, yet)

I have already seen, that this kind of issue is old and there have been fixes for inline math and display math and even latex code chunks. Related post:
#1963

Are there fixes for the issue above? If not I think this would be a really cool feature to include (maybe an option "automatically escape special chracters" that can be turned on or off in the visual).

Thanks in advance!

[mcanouil]

Thanks for the report.

I suggest you look for something similar or open a new issue on the Visual Editor repository: https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto.