This would be an interesting enhancement, indeed!

Right now it's possible to set keyboard shortcuts also for character styles (there are already several predefined for paragraph styles) so it should be possible to set some kind of "activator" (either default keyboard shortcuts or something else) for common character styles.

Great idea!

PD: set version as "Inherited from OOo"

You ask for markdown [1] in a WYSIWYG text processor? Meaning instead of ctrl+B/click on the toolbar etc. you want to type *FOO* and the text is magically changed into <style:bold>FOO</style>. If that is what you request it is out of scope in my opinion.
Asking for a specific clipboard format is something different. But in both cases I would recommend to do that per extension.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown

(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #2)
> You ask for markdown [1] in a WYSIWYG text processor? Meaning instead of
> ctrl+B/click on the toolbar etc. you want to type *FOO* and the text is
> magically changed into <style:bold>FOO</style>. If that is what you request
> it is out of scope in my opinion.

See Tools > Autocorrect Options > tab Options. It already is there.
And applies direct formatting.
The suggestion is to make it possible, that not DF is applied, but relevant character styles.

Sounds as a reasonable idea, IMO.

It can be optional to the user.
To export to ePub is recommended Text Styles instead direct format because in HTML design is recommended a Class (.bold) istead a tag (<strong>, for example).

Why not go with character styles only instead of using direct formatting without a new option for the user. The only problem I see is if the user changed the attributes of--for example--Strong Emphasis character style from bold to red and *too* results in a red string instead of bold.

The ability to customize the style opens up countless possibilities for the user; making it optional (at Write level or at Document level even more) to format your documents. Replacing 4[*] steps for what it would be enough to type *too* is beneficial in time for the writer. And if the user wants to do it in certain documents or save the replacement option in the template, much more.

[*] Write the text, select it, search for the style, apply it

Leandro, what exactly is your request?

a) Extend the inbuilt auto-correct options with standardized markdown/-up
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_markup_language)

b) Make auto-correction a character style
*bold* -> <style:StrongEmphasis>bold</style>

c) Export/Copy the text as markdown
(Would be another ticket)

I guess "B", because I don't know what the inner workings of the code look like (I'm just a simple user) and I have to use an online translator to understand what they say and translate from Spanish into English. But, if B applies a text style, my suggestion is related to B.

Sorry, definitively is B.

Sorry that I keep insisting on the use case but I still doubt the it's a needed change. What advantage does it have to apply the style Strong Emphasis instead of just bold? Disadvantage is the hard relation to a variable: when devs change the style for some reason it requires to adopt the auto correction, and Strong Emphasis can be changed by the user. So what benefit do we get from the character style?

Believe the autocorrect mechanism can be adjusted to apply either DF as now, or alternatively a Character "Style" set by user preference. But here the DF should probably remain the default.

With Tiago S's addition of markup for Italic and Strikethrough in 2016 [1], there are now four LO edit engine "autocorrect characters" [2] that when used in start/end pairs will apply direct text formatting, when that autocorrect feature is set enabled [3][4]. 

That is the FnChgWeightUnderl autocorrect is active by default now and assigns "*", "/", "-", "_" markup these character attribute formats respectively [5]:

"*" pair => ( WEIGHT_BOLD, SID_ATTR_CHAR_WEIGHT )
"/" pair => ( ITALIC_NORMAL, SID_ATTR_CHAR_POSTURE )
"-" pair => ( STRIKEOUT_SINGLE, SID_ATTR_CHAR_STRIKEOUT )
"_" pair => ( LINESTYLE_SINGLE, SID_ATTR_CHAR_UNDERLINE )

While "Emphasis" and "Strong Emphasis" character styles exist and could now be used and adjusted as needed, currently there are no matching character styles defined suitable to take a Strikethrough or Underline markup. Those would reqire new styles be defined and added to default templates.


=-ref-=
[1] https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/31076

[2] https://opengrok.libreoffice.org/xref/core/editeng/source/misc/svxacorr.cxx#249

[3] Tools -> AutoCorrect -> Autocorrect Options -> Options tab: checkbox [M][T] for "Automatic *bold*, /italic/, -strikeout- and _underline_" (controlling RID_SVXSTR_BOLD_UNDER and ChgWeightUnderl)

[4] https://opengrok.libreoffice.org/xref/core/editeng/source/misc/svxacorr.cxx#1315

[5] https://opengrok.libreoffice.org/xref/core/editeng/source/misc/svxacorr.cxx#733

What is your opinion, Tiago? You added strikout and italic for 5.4 and I wonder if there was a user request.

We discussed the suggestion in the design meeting. Changing the markdown direct formatting into a character style would require first of all two additional styles. Not a big deal as well as the switch from SID_ATTR_CHAR_WEIGHT to STR_POOLCHR_HTML_STRONG (or whatever the correct command is). But the advantage is opposed by the loss of control. If users change Strong Emphasis for some reason the markdown is not working as expected anymore (consider that people try out and forget what has been done). We took also an option into consideration where the user can decide whether the current direct formatting or a character style is applied by the autocorrect function but I'm strongly against this over-engineering. So the decision is to resolve this request as WONTFIX to keep control over the convenience function.