Handling Underline tag in Tridion 2013

Question

I have a requirement that I need to handle B (Bold), I (Italic) and U (underline) tags. We are using XSLT and XPath.

I have an RTF field named <text>......</text>.

I entered some text in this RTF field and made it Bold and Italic, the source xml for the bold and italic is as follows:

<text>
    <strong xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">adasdasd</strong>
</text>

<text>
    <em xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">adsadas</em>
</text>

I handled both Bold and Italic tag in this following way.

<xsl:template name="format" match="*[local-name()='strong'] | *[local-name()='em']">
    <xsl:variable name="tagName" select="name()" />
    <xsl:element name="{$tagName}" namespace="{$nSpace}">
        <xsl:copy-of select="@*" />
        <xsl:apply-templates />
    </xsl:element>
</xsl:template>

In the published file I'm getting the tag element as expected

<text><strong>adasdasd</strong></text>

<text><em>adsadas</em></text>

It is working fine for Bold and Italic.
But, I tried 4 ways for underline.

1. Enter consecutive text in that RTF field

<text>Good Morning Have a nice <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" 
style="text-decoration: underline;">Day</span></text>

2. Enter a single word

<text>
    <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="text-decoration: underline;">Welcome</div>
</text>

3. Enter text and press ENTER Key

<text>
    <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">jhoiohad</p>
    <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">asuhdoahsoid</p>
    <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="text-decoration: underline;">ahsdhaoiodia</p>
    <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">asdasd</p>
</text>

4. Enter text and press SHIFT + ENTER key

<text>
    huiuiioasiodio
    <br xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
    iohoshiofhiohsd
    <br xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
    <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="text-decoration: underline;">iosiohfioio</span>
    <br xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
    uisuidfuiuisdhf
</text>

I don't know how to handle for underline tag. Because different tag elements are generated. In the published file I need to get like this:

<text><u>...</u></text><br>

How to achieve this?

Answer 1

The rich text field editor doesn't generate <u> tags automatically (see my comment about its deprecation). If you want your output to contain these tags there are a few possible approaches; each with specific drawbacks:

1. Use a plain text field instead of a rich text field.
   Rich text fields are NOT the general solution for everything HTML. They are specifically designed as lightweight content-with-markup blocks supporting simple features only.

2. Edit the rich text field content via the "source" tab of the rich text field. You will need to explicitly allow the u tag by amending your own template:
   match="*[local-name()='strong'] | *[local-name()='em'] | *[local-name()='u']"

3. Convert the editor generated "underline" solution to the desired solution. You will need to match any tags (I would limit it to p or span) with a style="text-decoration: underline;" attribute and convert them into a u tag.

Option 1 is the most flexible and least costly solution but also the least user friendly.
Option 2 is much less flexible but equally cheap and slightly more user friendly.
Option 3 is the least flexible and most expensive solution but it is by far the user friendliest (users don't have to touch any HTML code).

The main drawback of option 3 is that with the next release of SDL Web the generated HTML for underline text could be radically different breaking this solution. It will most likely need constant maintenance and has the most unforeseen side-effects.