Simple reference names are single words consisting of alphanumerics plus isolated (no two adjacent) internal hyphens, underscores, periods, colons and plus signs; no whitespace or other characters are allowed
The highlighter currently does not allow colon or plus (which the spec says is valid), but it does allow spaces, parentheses and forward slash (which are invalid according to the spec).
I can understand that it might allow a bit more characters than the spec, but I'm missing highlighting when I use a colon (e.g. as a separator: .. _figure:this-is-my-figure:).
The reStructuredText Markup Specification has the following to say about reference names for links:
The highlighter currently does not allow colon or plus (which the spec says is valid), but it does allow spaces, parentheses and forward slash (which are invalid according to the spec). I can understand that it might allow a bit more characters than the spec, but I'm missing highlighting when I use a colon (e.g. as a separator:
.. _figure:this-is-my-figure:).