Dear team,
Summary
Provide a consistent core set of text-formatting capabilities across Planning Analytics Workspace objects and contexts that display or contain text.
PAW already offers many formatting options, but the available capabilities differ by object and by formatting path (property panel vs. Markdown / rich text). A shared formatting model would make it easier to build professional, visually consistent Planning Analytics applications.
Current Behaviour
Text formatting in PAW is split across several objects and two different mechanisms:
Visual properties (property panel / Format Manager)
Rich text / Markdown (currently most visible in Single Cell visualizations)
The result is a different mix of capabilities depending on where text is displayed or edited.
Examples based on current PAW behaviour:
Explorations and cube views have additional formatting for data cells, row headers and column headers. Format Manager already consolidates many of these view options, but it does not provide a common text model for Book objects such as Text, View Title and Single Cell.
IBM documentation also states that Single Cell Markdown supports headers, bold, italic, lists and hyperlinks, but not underline, strikethrough, subscript, superscript or citations.
This leads to avoidable inconsistencies. A user can underline text in a Text object or via Single Cell properties, but not via Single Cell Markdown. Lists work in the Text object and in Markdown, but not in a View title. Padding and vertical alignment exist on the Text object, but are missing or hidden on other text surfaces.
Requested Enhancement
Establish a consistent core text-formatting model across PAW objects that display user-visible text, while keeping object-specific options where they are meaningful.
Proposed core properties:
Additional capabilities where the object displays multi-line or rich content:
The goal is not to force every option onto every object. The goal is that, wherever text formatting is offered, users can expect the same core behaviour.
Two formatting paths should align with this model:
If the renderer can already display a core style, Markdown should not remain a weaker subset. In particular, Single Cell Markdown should support underline and strikethrough if those styles are part of the PAW core and already exist in the property panel.
Object-specific capabilities can stay in addition to the core, for example:
Number formats, prefix/suffix and KPI-style layout for Single Cell
Borders where a widget is used as a card or tile
Format Manager options that apply only to explorations and cube views
The exact UI and technical implementation are open to IBM.
Example
A dashboard builder uses a Text object for commentary, a View title for the report heading, and a Single Cell widget for a KPI or instruction text.
Today these three surfaces do not share the same basic typography and layout options. The user must work around missing padding, alignment, lists or Markdown gaps, or mix objects only because one of them happens to support the required style.
With a shared core, the same font, color, emphasis, alignment, wrap and spacing model would be available on each suitable object. The user could then choose the object for functional reasons, not because of formatting gaps.
Benefits
Consistent visual design across Books and dashboards
Fewer workarounds when one object lacks a basic style
Faster authoring of professional applications
Lower learning effort, because formatting behaves predictably
Freer choice of the right PAW object for a given use case
A cleaner foundation for future rich-text features in PAW
Scope
This request covers Planning Analytics Workspace objects and contexts that display or contain user-visible text, including but not limited to:
Text objects
View titles
Single Cell visualizations
Text elements in explorations / cube views (via Format Manager, as far as a shared core is applicable)
It does not require identical UI on every object. Object-specific functionality can remain.
Tooltip Markdown is intentionally out of scope and should stay a separate idea.
Related themes that could be linked, but are not required for this request: Format Painter / copy style, corporate default palettes for fill and text on non-visualization objects, and richer border options.
Expected Behaviour
Where a PAW object supports text formatting, the core properties should be available and behave consistently.
If font, size, color, bold/italic/underline/strikethrough, alignment, wrap and padding are defined as core PAW text properties, they should work the same way on applicable objects.
Where Markdown or rich text is supported, it should expose the same core emphasis and structure options that the visual renderer already allows, instead of a reduced subset.
Additional features such as lists, indentation, hyperlinks and fill colors should be available where they are technically and contextually appropriate.
Implementation details are open to IBM. The main requirement is a consistent, extensible text-formatting model across Planning Analytics Workspace.
Thanks in advance.
With best regards,
Vitalij
+1!
I really like this idea.
From a user and application-design perspective, having a more consistent approach to text formatting across PAW would make a lot of sense. Today, the available formatting options can vary depending on which object is being used, which can make the authoring experience feel somewhat inconsistent.
A common core of formatting capabilities could make the overall experience much more consistent and predictable, while still allowing object-specific options where they make sense.
I also like the idea of aligning the different formatting approaches, such as the property-based formatting and Markdown / rich text, so that users do not have to learn different rules depending on where they are working.
This could make PAW feel more coherent overall and would give application designers more freedom to choose the appropriate object based on its purpose rather than its available formatting options.
Definitely something I would like to see improved.