Скачать или смотреть How to Render HTML with Bold and Italic Text in Emacs Tooltips

Discover the solution to displaying `HTML` in Emacs tooltips, complete with bold and italic styling for enhanced readability.
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This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/68433636/ asked by the user 'toomas' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/4699984/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/68470328/ provided by the user 'NickD' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/2561714/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

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How to Render HTML with Bold and Italic Text in Emacs Tooltips

Displaying formatted text, such as HTML, in Emacs tooltips can sometimes seem challenging, especially when you want to include styling like bold and italic. If you've attempted to showcase such text but found that it appears only as plain text, you’re not alone. Let’s explore the issue and unveil a practical solution to this common problem.

The Problem: Plain Text in Tooltips

When working with tooltips in Emacs, you might have tried this code snippet with hopes to show formatted HTML content:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

In this piece of code:

The HTML content including bold <b> and italic <i> tags is inserted into a temporary buffer.

After rendering, the tooltips are displayed using tooltip-show.

However, the expected bold and italic effects do not appear. Instead, all the text is rendered as plain text—frustrating, isn't it? Attempts to modify settings like x-gtk-use-system-tooltips also yield no improvement.

The Underlying Issue

So, why does this happen? The mechanism behind tooltip display in Emacs is designed in such a way that tooltip-show overrides the face properties to apply a default tooltip appearance. Here's how it works in simpler terms:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

This means that when you pass your formatted string to tooltip-show, it effectively strips the formatting, replacing it with its own tooltip properties—hence the absence of bold and italic attributes.

The Solution: Customizing tooltip-show

Fortunately, there's a way to bypass this formatting limitation. By defining a modified version of tooltip-show, you can accommodate your needs better. Below are the steps to implement this solution:

Create a Custom Tooltip Function:
Rather than using the default tooltip-show, create a function that directly passes your text to x-show-tip without altering the properties.

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Utilize Your Custom Function:
Replace your original tooltip-show call in your code with your new my-tooltip-show function.

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

This modification retains your HTML formatting, and you should observe the bold and italic text rendered correctly in the tooltip as intended.

Conclusion

With creativity and a bit of customization, you can effectively display HTML content, including formatted text, in Emacs tooltips. By following the outlined solution, you will be able to enhance the readability of your tooltips with bold and italic styling, providing a better experience for users interacting with your Emacs setup. If you encounter further challenges, stay encouraged to experiment with the Emacs environment—it often rewards those who delve deeper.