[Bug 6607] New: wrapping text to limit line length without a table

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=6607

           Summary: wrapping text to limit line length without a table
           Product: HTML WG
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: enhancement
          Priority: P2
         Component: HTML 5: The Markup Language
        AssignedTo: mike@w3.org
        ReportedBy: Nick_Levinson@yahoo.com
         QAContact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
                CC: public-html@w3.org


Text line lengths should not be so long before line breaks as to make human
reading uncomfortable. Newspapers and magazines are typeset for more ideal line
lengths. As computer monitors have gotten wider over the years, as the
installed base of monitors are very much not the same size, and as users vary
in whether they maximize windows within a large monitor, some means is needed
to allow an author to limit line length and force wrapping at an arbitrary
distance from the left margin and before the browser's right edge is reached
regardless of monitor and window sizes.

To that end, I use a table, since I can specify a cell's width. You don't want
us using the <table> element for nontabular data, but I use it successfully,
for example, to set a 13-point font into a 600-pixel-wide cell and leave the
left and right areas empty.

The concept is already present in HTML 5 regarding textarea, a feature I'm not
sure I'd use just for this purpose, especially with long texts.

I've seen many examples of long line lengths that lead the eyes to swim
seemingly forever before coming back to the starting margin, I generally think
they should fix their layouts.

If you can add a nontabular nontextarea method that will work with older
browser versions, that would be fine.

This responds to <http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/single-page/>, Working Draft, 12
February 2009. For Bugzilla, I selected all OSes; I develop on Win95a and 98SE
and Linux and want pages to work on whatever users use.

Thank you.

-- 
Nick


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Received on Sunday, 22 February 2009 07:21:20 UTC