I am a macOS user who uses system’s default Chinese input method for a long time, and I still don’t know any simple ways to input those fullwidth *s and _s.
The only three ways to input them I knew are:
- search "fullwidth asterisk/underline " on web and copy/paste;
- add “Unicode Hex Input” to my input method, and use magic numbers to input them;
- use Japanese input method to input them.
None of those ways above are fast or convenient, and will just break the coherent writing experience.
And even if inputting them are not problems for any Chinese/Japanese users, what about users of other languages that neither use spaces to separate words nor has fullwidth characters, like Thai…?
Introducing new symbols also causes inconsistence and confusion. Every other markup are ASCII-based, people will always expect halfwidth *s and _s to work, and will never expect that they must use fullwidth *s and _ to markup Chinese sentences specially.
And also, I have never seen people use fullwidth *s and _ in Chinese communities. Maybe it is because those two characters are harder to input. Anyway, I don’t think many Chinese users are familiar to input them, or at least use them on a daily basis.
By the way, could someone give an exmaple on why are nested emphasises needed. I don’t quite understand the use case for that “delimiter run” thing.