Re: An issue with the Unicode BiDi Algorithm

Mark Davis wrote:
>You would use a <br> if you wanted, for some reason, to have a linebreak 
>in the middle of a paragraph.
>  > What I mean is, <p>'s and <br>'s
>  > have semantic significance, they're not just vehicles for visual style
>The reason that you are getting a problem in display is *precisely* for 
>that reason. There is a real semantic difference between <br> and <p>, one 
>that is recognized by the BIDI algorithm (*after* applying the W3C 
>recommendations for how to deal with <br>).
>"1. xxxx <br>2. xxxx" is all part of one paragraph semantically, so as 
>far as the bidi algorithm is concerned, it is the same as having "1. 
>xxxx<space>2. xxxx" where there happened to be a line-wrap before the "2". 
>What the user really wanted is separate paragraphs, one starting with "1." 
>and the next starting with "2.".

What the users want is, on the one hand, a differentiation between a <br> 
and a <p>, which are different semantically, and on the other hand, a 
differentiation between a <br> and a space, which are also different 
semantically: They want to use br's, but not have them behave in the 
context of the UBA as though they were just spaces.

Your explanation is of course in correspondence with what the UBA says, 
what I'm saying is that many people think this should change. And what I'm 
asking is whether there's a compelling reason for br's to behave as though 
they were spaces - seeing how they are often (almost always?) used with 
the assumption that their UBA-relevant behavior is different than that of spaces.

Like I asked in my previous e-mail, I assume there some examples of 
scenarios in which an author would prefer the current UBA behavior over 
the change suggested in the bug I linked to. If this is the case, maybe 
seeing such examples would convince me that the current algorithm is the 
better alternative; and if there aren't such representative examples, 
perhaps you should consider a change after all.

Eyal

>BTW, I'll be out the rest of the week, and won't be able to respond.

No problem, there's no hurry.

Received on Thursday, 17 February 2005 05:04:22 UTC