Re: space

| > Formally, in the English language there are situations apon which
extra
| > space is inserted between items.  Some examples include the two
space
| > after a period ending a sentence and the two spaces between the
state
| > and zip code in an address.  Do people suggest this extra space be
| > maintained in HTML documents and how do people propose to do it?
| 
| The "language" has no such needs; those are just old typewriter
| conventions that have no place in typeset text, and an HTML doc
| is typeset text.  The spacing after a sentence or before a ZIP
| code is entirely up to the browser/style sheet.

No, not quite...  The renderer can't make any decisions on this matter,
"insufficient information".. including two spaces in the HTML source is
not a very good hint...

| If, for some reason, you want to force the issue rather than
| letting the renderer make those decisions, you can certainly
| tell the browser your intentions with &nbsp;s or <span>s with
| an appropriate style.  But as you point out, browsers vary in
| their ability to take a hint.  In the long run, you might as
| well leave the text alone to preserve the integrity of the data,
| and trust that over time, browsers will come to display it most
| appropriately for their environment.

No, that will NEVER happen...  There is not a single chance that any
browser will ever display "typeset" text without being told where to do
this at...  I have to argue that LYNX's way of taking the hint is not
very good, and the NBSP way of hinting at it is again not very good...
maybe some new tags need to be brought out into existance?

<SENTENCE>This is a sentence.<SENTENCE>A this is another...

Anyway, I think the point stands ... "hinting" is not a good idea ...
while I can't stress it as a requirement, something that litterally
denotes that a larger space should be made would be more appropriate...
 HTML 3.0 supposedly had something like this...

And I don't know about you, but my english teacher would have flunked
me for not including two space between sentences in any typed or
electronic written work...  Seems to me its a requirement! :( (he'd
also require double spacing and etc...)

Received on Sunday, 22 September 1996 15:26:03 UTC