Re: Some complaints about HTML 4.0

On 12 Jul 97 at 22:57, www-html@w3.org wrote:

> Liam Quinn wrote:
> >> Empty P elements are similar to multiple BR elements in a lot of
> >> ways...
> 
> David Perrell wrote:
> > Define lot. In a typical rendering, BR forces a line space, P has
> > vertical margins. [...many other differences deleted...]
> 
> Liam wasn't arguing that P's were like BR's -- he argued that
> *empty* P elements are similar to *multiple* BR elements.  I
> was going to disagree with him at first, but now I think he's
> sort of right--on a structural level, the semantic content of an
> empty P is equivalent to the semantic content of two or more BRs.
> 
> <P></P> says "There is a paragraph here that contains nothing."
> <BR><BR> says "There are multiple line breaks here."

While a <P>...</P> element defines a paragraph, it doesn't neccessarily define 
it by "seperated from surrounding text by blank lines"; I've seen one browser 
(I forget which one)  Which renders a paragraph in a more textually-traditional 
manner of indenting the first line, and having no top or bottom margins to 
speak of.  The margins used for a <P>...</P> block are definitely presentation 
in nature, and as such can _easily_ vary.  

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Received on Sunday, 13 July 1997 07:55:52 UTC