When sending to IRC, convert italics to markdown, not control codes

[bradyt]

For #emacs:libera.chat, the channel mode contains +c.

c colour filter | Strip colour and formatting codes from channel messages.

-- https://libera.chat/guides/channelmodes

Currently, user does not have an easy way in desktop Element to always rely on message being sent as plain text. See element-hq/element-web#20321 (comment).

Underscores are silently converted to html italics, > a quote is silently converted to blockquote html. IRC bridge silently converts these to control codes or ASCII text, the Element/Matrix user is not aware of this. If the IRC channel silently drops control codes, but not the > character, user may not be aware of what actually is received at other end. This can be unfortunate if these characters are part of a syntax under discussion on IRC channel, or is being used to interact with a channel bot.

In particular, _underscored text_ is silently received as underscored text on +c channels.

As long as Element, arguably the flagship Matrix client, is not facilitating sending non-html text converted from markdown, I would suggest that italics and bold text are not converted to control codes by IRC bridge.

I understand the likelihood that this project will decide to not avoid control codes. I hope such an explicit stance hopes to further motivate the issue at Element for desktop.

[tadzik]

Converting to markdown would be a sensible fallback for +c channels, for non-+c I think it makes sense to keep it the way it is.

[BrenBarn]

I just assumed that the bridge would send plaintext only (i.e., send the raw markdown as text). That seems like the most sensible thing. I don't want to assume any capabilities on the primitive IRC end of the bridge. :-)

I don't really understand why the bridge is working with HTML in the first place. Wouldn't the plaintext version of the message be a safer starting point?

[poVoq]

A setting to always send raw Markdown would be nice as there are IRC clients that understand it.

[progval]

Which ones?

[poVoq]

Convos for example and also most XMPP clients connected to IRC channels via Biboumi. But there are probably also others that support basic markdown.