- From: Bert Bos <bert@w3.org>
- Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 22:26:44 +0100 (MET)
- To: www-style@w3.org
Dave J Woolley writes:
> > From: Bert Bos [SMTP:bert@w3.org]
> >
> > The main problem of BR is that the first BR just starts a new line,
> > without adding any vertical whitespace, but the second and subsequent
> > ones create whitespace.
> [DJW:]
> Lynx takes the view that the HTML specification leaves it open
> as to whether any white space is created.
> [DJW:]
Yes, sorry. I should have added "in Netscape 1.1" (or whatever was the
first browser to do it this way).
When we created CSS1, we didn't think Netscape's interpretation of BR
was either correct or important, and we thought that one BR was as
good as a hundred: it breaks a paragraph in two parts. Any second or
subsequent BR doesn't do anything extra, just like multiple empty Ps
don't do anything. The rule "BR {display: block}" would capture that
nicely. Unfortunately, we can't seem to teach people that using BRs
for inserting whitespace is against the spirit of HTML and that anyway
CSS has more powerful ways to do the same :-(
Bert
--
Bert Bos ( W 3 C ) http://www.w3.org/
http://www.w3.org/people/bos/ W3C/INRIA
bert@w3.org 2004 Rt des Lucioles / BP 93
+33 (0)4 92 38 76 92 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France
Received on Friday, 23 February 2001 18:17:30 UTC