Cannot format descriptions

Among other things, this would involve deciding on a safe subset of HTML, advertising that safe subset in the Web forms, converting the HTML to plain text when e-mailing people about bug reports, and mysteriously losing the HTML as a result when people tweaked the description via e-mail. So it's probably not a good idea.

How about we print "Plain text only, URLs will be auto-linked" in fine print under each description/comment form?

Good point regarding the security... So, this can probably go from "Incomplete" to some other status...

I suggest using Markdown syntax -- it's easier to maintain in the database, and you have greater control over styling.

Markdown is a great idea.

Also, this may not be required, but you could look at it:
http://htmlpurifier.org/

I propose GitFlavoredMarkdown: http://github.github.com/github-flavored-markdown/

rst is also an alternative: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html

Markdown or wiki-type syntaxes are basically the linga franca of basic markupping these days, and there are plenty of battle-tested libraries which should be available.

Finally being able to correctly format bug descriptions (and comments as well) would be a very nice addition.

Or NME (Creole) for a project hosted here, wiki syntax with many output formats including HTML and plain text: https://launchpad.net/nme/

I agree that markdown syntax will be the best, as it will be familiar thing for GitHub uses.

I think GitHub Flavored Markdown is a good idea.

Triaging to reflect that this isn't currently scheduled nor likely to be for a while. We'd definitely love a patch if someone is particularly keen on it. I suggest discussing the exact implementation here, or on the -dev list before putting a lot of time in.

In addition to bug descriptions, PPA descriptions could benefit from some basic text formatting.

Markdown is a good choice not only because it's familiar, but also because it's perfectly readable as plain text. No reverse conversion would be necessary for email.

Six year old bug, FFS! Surely this isn't rocket science.