Re: Alternative to NOBR tag?

From: "Dan Delaney" <DDelaney@PowerCreative.com>
Subject: Alternative to NOBR tag?
Date: Wed, Aug 1, 2001, 9:57 AM

> Hello all.
>
> Forgive me if this issue has been resolved, but I couldn't find an answer in
> the archives or anywhere else.
>
> I strive to make XHTML files that validate. But when I have something like a
> phone number or social security number that I don't want the browser to
> break apart I have to use the <nobr> tag to do that. The <nobr> tag,
> however, keeps the page from validating. Unfortunately, I can't find any
> kind of "break" style in the CSS spec that would allow me to create a class
> that would tell the browser to do basically what the <nobr> tag
> does--something like <span class="PhoneNumber">999-999-9999</span>.
>
> Is there an alternative to the <nobr> tag

In your example, this style rule:

.PhoneNumber { white-space: nowrap; }

> that works in all of the browsers?

That works in all browsers that support all CSS1 properties (of which there
are now several).

> And if not, why has the <nobr> tag been depricated without a viable
> alternative?

In this case there is a viable alternative, but often tags are deprecated as
soon as a _recommended_ (read: in a W3C REC) alternative is available, which
may occur sometime before such alternative has gained enough widespread
adoption to be considered viable.  Hence we have "transitional" and
"legacy".

Tantek