I agree with limiting the colors. One of the big attractions of Bear is the power, yet simplicity.
There are certainly many “features” I can think of but we’re getting right back to some of the bloatware currently available. Having those options listed should easily allow for separating/distinguishing text.
I wish you would consider having the various separators for additional levels of separation of text. Currently we have the horizontal line but would be nice to have the 3-dots separator, thicker line separator for example.
It would be great to add a few paths as you described. To highlight the text in any color, we could:
add after ==
add “r”, which will be automatically replaced by
Select from the emoji list by typing “:r”
Users are different and each may have their own preferred option. Several options are an opportunity to choose the best to your taste and in general it is very cool.
We can manually specify the circle of the desired color, write the first letter of the color, or put a colon + write the first letter of the color. The automatic option implies that we have a selection menu.
Here it should be taken into account that not every user will benefit from multi-colored highlights. And therefore:
It would be nice to have an option to disable the color suggestion when selecting text by typing “==”
in addition to paragraph 1 or as an alternative. The selection menu should be unobtrusive and not complicate the text input process: I enter “==” and see the selection menu → I continue to write and the first letter is printed, closing the selection menu, i.e. I do not have to make unnecessary movements with the keyboard or mouse.
It would also be great to add the ability to add a highlight color to the formatting bar so that in addition to manual input/selection menu, we can do it with a mouse click.
Things can become complex as soon as you need options to accommodate every user. In my opinion, this is one of those features that would be best kept as simple and transparent as possible.
I think having the option to color-highlight text from the formatting bar is great, but have an interfaceless option that can be easily typed without the need to reach for the mouse. For this, any of the suggested ideas (that do not auto pop up a menu) would work.
I like the keyboard shortcut for emojis “:” since you can still highlight the usual and normal markdown way, but typing “:” it after == brings up the color circle emojis for the special color highlight.
I am very exited to see this feature coming! It will be extremely helpful!
The colored circles idea is very strange to me though. The main highlight isn’t a fixed color. It’s dependant on the theme. For example, Gandalf theme: highlight is green. So what the effect of a green circle? Yellow? Very confusing. Better to make the highlight semantics come from the theme with abstract syntax, like Gardriel’s sugestion:
But I understand the objection that is not comptible with other markdown editors. Thinking even simpler, we have precedent already in markdown that repeating a punctuation changes its “level”. Therefor:
If the user highlights all of the visible text in a table cell, then that entire cell looks like it has the background of the highlighted text. This allows for the markdown to be compatible, while giving the ability to color table cells (which is VERY important for people with ADHD, etc).
Allow the user to set the rgba values for the different colors in their settings. So, while Bear can only support 🔴 🔵 🟢 🟡 🟠 🟣 colors; the user gets to determine how each of those colors shows up on the screen. So, in addition to the theme; the user can select (or create) a highlighter theme on their own.
I can’t emphasize enough what a difference it makes for a user to be able to select colors that they find pleasing and/or eye catching for their purposes.
P.S.
This update is very exciting. Can’t wait to see it.
No. Markdown is about giving structure to the text, not formatting it. Highlight is an exception as the color is not ment to be about the look but a way to assigning meaning.
This has some elegance to it, but we want colors to be consistent, if you have selected red to mean something, then the line should have red semantics even at other places. Also, it does’t scale very well if we want more than three or four colors.
That would not look great in languages like Chinese where you don’t use space between words. It would also break the symmetry further between the start and end tag.
The exact flavor of the color will be part of the theming. Red will be red in all themes, but with different saturation and lightness to fit the theme.
One main reason that we suggested the color patch syntax (==🟢highlighted text==) over others can be summed up in this quote from John Gruber, the creator of Markdown:
The overriding design goal for Markdown’s formatting syntax is to make it as readable as possible. The idea is that a Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions.
The proposed syntax is easy to read and carries meaning even for those who don’t know about it. It also plays well with editors and tools that do support non-colored highlights (==highlighted text==). The main disadvantage remains that it is not easy to type the color patch character, but with modern editors, it is not that hard either. And in Bear we can provide several options to make it easier.
The programmer in me is attracted by a syntax like =r=highlighted text== as it is easy to type, and it is nice to stay within the ASCII range. But it doesn’t match the Markdown philosophy as well in my mind.
I’m thinking… if how emoji picker works is by find and replace basically, something like ==:hrr write== (so it becomes :hrr red :hbb blue :hgg green and :hyy yellow) might work? Or ==:hrr: write== or ==:h1: write==. Something like that, h standing for highlighting and also have picker shown with it
I’m for the emoji picker as well. And yes, things like “:hrr” or “:hbb” could be added as “shortcuts” to specific color bubble emojis, but to get away from English color names, it might be best to offer an easier way to select them. For this, I propose sorting color bubble emojis to the top of the list when “:” is typed after “==” to make them easy to select if you don’t happen to know whatever other text shortcuts there might be (e.g., :hrr).
True but I think one of Bear’s best hallmarks is elegant restraint and careful choice. I would not expet more than two or three highlights variantions, myself.
I don’t understand what “red semantics” is – as you say, it is about structuring the text, not fromatting it. Headings do not have “21 point semantics” or “bold semantcs”, to compare.
How does this fit when the primary highlight is dependant on the theme? Again, for Gandalf ==this is important== shows green; Olive Dunk it is light orange, Rose Pine Dawn blue. There is even more variety in the dark themese.
We are enabling colored highlighting to give people the opportunity to use more than one color at a time, and assign them different meaning. For example, you might use red to mean “check this fact”, and blue to mean “reformulate”. For this reason, it is important that the colors doesn’t change when changing theme or exporting.
For most people using such systems, three or four colors would be enough, but it is also good to have some more colors to choose from, as you might want to use the same system as you do with physical pens.
The current hightlight ==highlight== doesn’t say anything about the color, and indeed the color is different for different themes. That will likely stay the same. You only need to use the colored highlight if you want use a specific color system.
I’m a sucker for emoji, and emoji can be readily inserted on mobile, with text expansion and a growing number of tools: despite being a tad less easy to type, I really, reallylike that solution.
after ==
This allows for the markdown to be compatible, while giving the ability to color table cells (which is VERY important for people with ADHD, etc).
like 
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