In markdown (written in Obsidian.md) I use a plugin/theme so that 
`*==text==*` is rendered as red instead of italic and highlighted.

I use this lua-filter to convert regular `==highlighting==` to LaTeX 
`\hl{highlighting}` which works perfectly: (I somehow require these two 
files, I can't remember why) 

**highlight.lua**:
```
    --[[
    Add support for a custom inline syntax.
    This pandoc Lua filter allows to add a custom markup syntax
    extension. It is designed to be adjustable; it should not be
    necessary to modify the code below the separator line.
    The example here allows to add highlighted text by enclosing the
    text with `==` on each side. Pandoc supports this for HTML output
    out of the box. Other outputs will need additional filters.
    Copyright: © 2022 Albert Krewinkel
    License: MIT
    ]]
    
    -- Lua pattern matching the opening markup string.
    local opening = [[==]]
    
    -- Lua pattern matching the closing markup string.
    local closing = [[==]]
    
    -- Toggle whether the opening markup may be followed by whitespace.
    local nospace = true
    
    -- Function converting the enclosed inlines to their internal pandoc
    -- representation.
    local function markup_inlines (inlines)
      return pandoc.Span(inlines, {class="mark"})
    end
    
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    
    local function is_space (inline)
      return inline and
        (inline.t == 'Space' or
         inline.t == 'LineBreak' or
         inline.t == 'SoftBreak')
    end
    
    function Inlines (inlines)
      local result = pandoc.Inlines{}
      local markup = nil
      local start = nil
      for i, inline in ipairs(inlines) do
        if inline.tag == 'Str' then
          if not markup then
            local first = inline.text:match('^' .. opening .. '(.*)')
            if first then
              start = inline -- keep element around in case the
                             -- markup is not closed. Check if the
                             -- closing pattern is already in this
                             -- string.
              local selfclosing = first:match('(.*)' .. closing .. '$')
              if selfclosing then
                result:insert(markup_inlines{pandoc.Str(selfclosing)})
              elseif nospace and first == '' and is_space(inlines[i+1]) then
                -- the opening pattern is followed by a space, but the
                -- config disallows this.
                result:insert(inline)
              else
                markup = pandoc.Inlines{pandoc.Str(first)}
              end
            else
              result:insert(inline)
            end
          else
            local last = inline.text:match('(.*)' .. closing .. '$')
            if last then
              markup:insert(pandoc.Str(last))
              result:insert(markup_inlines(markup))
              markup = nil
            else
              markup:insert(inline)
            end
          end
        else
          local acc = markup or result
          acc:insert(inline)
        end
      end
    
      -- keep unterminated markup
      if markup then
        markup:remove(1) -- the stripped-down first element
        result:insert(start)
        result:extend(markup)
      end
      return result
    end
    
    local function markup_inlines (inlines)   return 
{pandoc.RawInline('tex', '\\hl{')} .. inlines .. {pandoc.RawInline('tex', 
'}')} end
```

**Span.lua**:
```
    function Span (span)
      if span.classes:includes 'mark' then
        return {pandoc.RawInline('latex', '\\hl{')} ..
          span.content ..
          {pandoc.RawInline('latex', '}')}
      end
    end
```
This works great, I got this here: 
[https://gist.github.com/tarleb/a0646da1834318d4f71a780edaf9f870](https://gist.github.com/tarleb/a0646da1834318d4f71a780edaf9f870)

However, for my other usecase I'd like it to be able to render `*==this 
kind of highlighting==*` as `\colorbox{lightred}{this new kind of 
highlighting}`

I've tried replacing the `\\hl{` with `\colorbox{declared-color}{` but that 
didn't work.

I was wondering if it had something to do with the class? But renaming that 
class from `mark` to `mark-red` didn't work either.

Any advice or ideas? Thanks!

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