Why does text have brackets and arrows?

[ccardimon]

I'm copying some text to be re-used. Even before I have and pasted, the text I want is bookended with square brackets and tiny arrows.

A sample is attached. I have never seen this before. Why does it look like this and is it a bad thing?

test.png

[LTinker68]

No, it's not a bad thing. It's just an indicator that the text is a variable or an indication of something else. If you click the down arrow to the right of the <t> icon in the XML Editor, you'll see options for showing and hiding various things in the XML Editor. So toggle off the Show Markers option and those will disappear.

Those symbols only appear in the XML Editor -- they don't appear in the output.

[ccardimon]

Thank you. I wish Show Markers was a bit more, granular. Does that make sense?

[LTinker68]

There might be some place in the help where it states what features it's indicating, but that doesn't help you to differentiate between the features, or rather, which ones are indicated and which aren't.

You can submit a feature request at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx asking for more granularity.

[ccardimon]

I would, but I don't want to whine. They must be tired of hearing from the likes of me by now.

[RamonS]

That's not whining. How are the MadCappers supposed to know what to fix if you do not complain? Studies show that roughly 2/3rd of customers who have reason to complain don't do it. That leaves business analysts and developers guessing what to do and generally they guess wrong. So please, complain as much as possible.

[Andrew]

I'm copying some text to be re-used. Even before I have and pasted, the text I want is bookended with square brackets and tiny arrows.

A sample is attached. I have never seen this before. Why does it look like this and is it a bad thing?

test.png

Given the context, I'm almost certain those brackets indicate a span tag. In other words, the code behind that looks something like:

Code: Select all

<p><span style="font-weight:normal;">Enter the Study Name</span></p>

If you have the top structure bars turned on, do you see a span block in it when you put your cursor inside the brackets? If so, that's a span.

[ccardimon]

Yes, indeed, they seem to be span tags. And they appear two and three layers deep, in some cases.