attaching "metadata" to a single character

[Mark Schonewille]

Josh,

Attaching data to a character that can very easily be deleted by the  
user sounds like a very bad idea. Don't do it. I'd re-think my  
interface and if you tell more about the purpose of this feature,  
I'll gladly help.

Best,

Mark

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Op 21-sep-2006, om 19:37 heeft Josh Mellicker het volgende geschreven:

> I have a text field, with blocks of text deliniated with the "\"  
> character.
>
> I am trying to figure out the best way to attach "metadata" to this  
> character.
>
> The first thing I thought of is that I could alter the color of the  
> character, that would give me three data values up to 255 each  
> (which would probably be enough, but might look weird). I could use  
> the "blue" value to point to a separate numbered group of data with  
> multiple fields, for example, but this complicates the overall  
> scheme, perhaps needlessly.
>
> I can't use the position of the character or the order of the  
> delimiters as an absolute, because the user will be typing and  
> deleting in the field, copying and pasting sections of the text, so  
> each "\" character will be moved around quite a bit, but I need it  
> to retain special info.
>
> I need the character to be visible so the user doesn't accidentally  
> highlight a section, cut it and paste it elsewhere without grabbing  
> the "\" character.
>
> I might go the direction of experimenting with the htmlText of the  
> field, to see if I can put custom tags in without affecting the  
> display, and see if the tags care copied and pasted properly... but  
> I'm not sure what dangers might arise if I mess with the htmlText  
> too much.
>
> I need something like custom properties of a single character...
>
> Ideas?