Using Comment notes the right way

[Daniel]

I recently discovered that I might have been using LyX Notes while I 
should have been using Comment notes. I was wondering why LyX Notes 
inherit the font (https://www.lyx.org/trac/ticket/12939). Comment notes 
do not inherit the font of the surrounding text which seems sensible for 
a comment. LyX Notes inherit and they seem to be fitting for commenting 
out parts of a document out.

My guess is that the commenting feature is what people typically expect 
when inserting a "sticky note" (see PDF readers' similar features and 
other word processors). The prominent positioning of LyX Notes (as the 
only notes in the toolbar) and the visualization (as a sticky note) 
seems to have mislead me over the years to expect that they are the 
analogue for what is found in other applications. What I really wanted 
to do most of the time is put a comment into the text.

A couple of things would be nice.

1. Make Comments more prominent and visualize them as sticky notes 
instead of LyX Notes.

Of course that means that LyX Notes should get a new visualization as 
well because otherwise they would look to similar. I am not sure what 
would be best. If they were specifically for commenting out, it would be 
easier but by now many people will have used LyX notes for other stuff 
as I did.

2. Allow free spacing in Comments. That is typically a feature in sticky 
notes in other applications which is handy if one wants just to quickly 
type stuff down without bothering with special formatting.

3. Make it optional whether Comments are exported or not. Another 
typical feature. There could be both a global (for all comments) setting 
and a local (for individual comments).

I think that would fit my commenting needs much better than what LyX 
currently has to offer.

Daniel