According to the findings from the app's latest beta version, WhatsApp is reportedly working on adding new text formatting options. The new features include creating code blocks, quote blocks, and bulleted lists. These tools aim to give users more ways to customize and organize their messages.
The Code Block tool will allow users to format code snippets with monospaced fonts and color syntax highlighting to improve readability. The Quote feature will let users easily reference and reply to specific messages, while the Bulleted Lists tool will enable creating numbered or bulleted lists within a chat.
Screenshots of the features in the beta version show the new formatting options alongside Bold, Italics, Strikethrough, and Monospace, which are already available.
To format text, users need to use special characters. And it will depend on the formatting you want to apply. For example, to format a code block, the text must be enclosed in single quotes.
This update caters specifically to developers and coders who regularly need to share and discuss code on WhatsApp for work. The formatting improvements will help avoid errors and miscommunication around technical content.
The news comes after WhatsApp recently launched HD photo sharing for all users, enabling high-resolution images to be sent without compression. Support for sharing HD videos is also expected soon. The option to share in HD cannot be set as default and needs to be selected each time that an image is sent to ensure that users still have "quick and reliable access" to image sharing.
These features follow other recent additions to WhatsApp, like emoji reactions and larger file sharing.
The features are expected to roll out to WhatsApp Desktop before coming to Android and iOS. Once launched, the new text formatting choices will give WhatsApp users more ways to communicate and personalize chats.
Source and image: WABetaInfo
