Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Editing/Syntax highlighting of special characters

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Syntax highlighting of special characters

  • Problem: In the new Wikipedia 2017 wikitext editor, special characters are not highlighted (for example, em- and en- dashes). In the old editor, the em- and en- dash had either an m or n above the dash to let the editor know which one was in use. In addition, the em- and en- dashes look similar in the new editor. I find myself deleting the old dash and inserting the correct one to make sure the correct one is in the final copy.
While the minus special character looks slightly different than the em- or en- dash, it is hard to see on its own. The minus special character is important for articles with mathematical formulas.
  • Who would benefit: Anyone who edits Wikipedia and is concerned about the correct use of special characters, specifically the dashes.
  • Proposed solution: Some sort of syntax highlighting for special characters. How it was done before is good enough for me. Others might have a better solution—just don't make it so you have to hover the mouse pointer over it.
  • More comments:


Discussion