#133 US-YW12: Handle yWriter Markup Conversion

[Anonymous]

Originally created by: smith-and-web

User Story

As a yWriter user,
I want to have my text formatting preserved,
So that my prose displays correctly in Kindling.

Parent Epic: [#123]

yWriter Markup Reference

yWriter uses BBCode-style markup in <SceneContent>:

Supported Markup

yWriter	Meaning	HTML	TipTap
[i]...[/i]	Italic	<em>	Italic mark
[b]...[/b]	Bold	<strong>	Bold mark
[s]...[/s]	Strikethrough	<s>	Strike mark
[u]...[/u]	Underline	<u>	Underline (if supported)

Special Content

Pattern	Meaning	Handling
/* ... */	Author comment	Preserve as note or strip
> ...	Quotation marker	Convert to blockquote or preserve
---	Scene break	Convert to horizontal rule
[note]...[/note]	Inline note	Preserve or convert to comment

Encoding Issues

Some yWriter files may contain:

• HTML entities (&, <, etc.)
• Numeric character references (“ for smart quotes)
• Mixed encoding (UTF-8 content in UTF-16 file)

Conversion Examples

Input (yWriter):

Sarah stared at the letter. [i]This can't be real[/i], she thought.

"You [b]knew[/b]," she said, her voice barely a whisper.

/* TODO: Add more tension here */

John's face went pale. He [s]reached for his coffee[/s] stood up abruptly.

Output (HTML for TipTap):

<p>Sarah stared at the letter. <em>This can't be real</em>, she thought.</p>

<p>"You <strong>knew</strong>," she said, her voice barely a whisper.</p>

<p>John's face went pale. He <s>reached for his coffee</s> stood up abruptly.</p>

Implementation

fn convert_ywriter_markup(text: &str) -> String {
    text
        .replace("[i]", "<em>")
        .replace("[/i]", "</em>")
        .replace("[b]", "<strong>")
        .replace("[/b]", "</strong>")
        .replace("[s]", "<s>")
        .replace("[/s]", "</s>")
        // Handle unclosed tags gracefully
        // Strip or preserve comments based on config
}

Acceptance Criteria

• [ ] [i]...[/i] converts to italics
• [ ] [b]...[/b] converts to bold
• [ ] [s]...[/s] converts to strikethrough
• [ ] [u]...[/u] converts to underline or stripped (configurable)
• [ ] Nested markup handled correctly: [i]italic [b]bold italic[/b][/i]
• [ ] Unclosed tags handled gracefully (close at end of paragraph)
• [ ] Author comments /* ... */ optionally preserved or stripped
• [ ] HTML entities decoded properly
• [ ] Line breaks and paragraphs preserved
• [ ] Unknown markup tags passed through or stripped

Edge Cases

• Unclosed tags: [i]start of italic without [/i]
• Mismatched nesting: [i][b]text[/i][/b]
• Tags across paragraphs: [i]first para\n\nsecond para[/i]
• Empty tags: [b][/b] (strip completely)
• Escaped brackets: \[not a tag\] (rare but possible)

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: smith-and-web

Implemented in PR [#140]. yWriter markup ([b]bold[/b], [i]italic[/i]) is converted to HTML (, ) during import.

[Anonymous]

Ticket changed by: smith-and-web

• status: open --> closed