Why do Comments have a different syntax than Answers?

Comments seem to use slightly different syntax than Answers. This can be quite limiting, especially when one wants to quote an Answer in a comment, for example:

> they use a special comment for the cases where the language cannot be guessed &lt;!-- lang: lang-name--&gt;

Or if one wants to strike-through something:

<del>Something that I later realized was false</del> and something
that was certainly still true.

It seems like it would be simplest to have the same markup available in both types of post. That way users wouldn't have to remember two different sets of acceptable markup.

There is really no big reason for this, except maybe to limit the types of things that can be put into the comments, for example you probably don't want to see headings in the comments.

We are currently working on allowing TinyMCE and the Markdown editors to work in the comments, as well as a simple plain text editor (in which case there will be only limited support of the special markup).

13.2k

Evgeny

answered 2013-02-27 16:24:06 -0600

edit flag offensive 0 remove flag delete link

Comments

Fair enough -- there are a few things like headings that users won't need in the comments, however the bulk of the formatting would be nice to have available in comments. It could also be nice to have a live preview of the comment formatting, just like we have for Answers.

qubit (2013-03-19 01:50:43 -0600) edit

Since its recent upgrade, answers.ros.org's comment area seems to be following this decision. I still really liked minimum formatting eg. auto-link URL.

IsaacSaito (2013-08-09 16:29:33 -0600) edit

It is possible now to use the same editor for the comments - there is an option for this in the "data entry and display rules" section of the settings.

Evgeny (2013-08-09 19:03:25 -0600) edit

add a comment see more comments

Why do Comments have a different syntax than Answers? edit

Comments

1 Answer

Comments

Why do Comments have a different syntax than Answers?