Re: Inline h*ll

On Thu, 13 Jan 2000, Matthew Brealey wrote:

>> <empty/> is not replaced either.
> <empty/> is meaningless.

Brush up on your XML. 

   <empty/> 

...and

   <empty></empty>

...are exactly equivalent.

As are 
   
   <span></span>

...and

   <span/>

...in XHTML.

> There is no way that <br> is a non-replaced element - non-replaced
> elements do not have width: x some of the time and width: y at
> others.

Eh? the 'width' property doesn't even *apply* to non-replaced
elements! Nor does it to normal <br> elements!

> It is not possible to interpret <br> as non-replaced, inline or
> anything else 

It may not be possible for you, but compliant CSS2 based UAs do indeed
interpret the HTML4 <br> empty element (<br/> in an XHTML document) as
an empty, non-replaced, inline element.

> - it is a forced line break, nothing more, nothing less.

To a CSS UA it is only a forced line break because a stylesheet
somewhere says it is using generated content.

>> However, the entire issue is moot given the anonymous inline
>> concept I mentioned previously.
> Don't you mean proposal or change? - no use for CSS-2 browsers.

There are no CSS2 browsers released yet. All CSS2 browsers currently
in development of which I have been able to see prerelease builds
implement the inline box model using the anonymous inline (aka root
inline boxes) concept/proposal/change. So yes, this is of use to them.

-- 
Ian Hickson                            ("`-''-/").___..--''"`-._   
http://www.bath.ac.uk/%7Epy8ieh/        `6_ 6  )   `-.  (     ).`-.__.`)
                                        (_Y_.)'  ._   )  `._ `. ``-..-' fL
Member, Mozilla Quality Assurance     _..`--'_..-_/  /--'_.' ,'
Browser Standards Compliance Team    (il).-''  (li).'  ((!.-'