line-b reaking-algorithm [was: Re: [CSSWG] Minutes Telecon 2013-04-10]

On Wed, 2013-04-10 at 22:11 -0400, Zack Weinberg wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 9:19 PM, fantasai <fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net> wrote:
> >   liam: This proposal is to let an author/script say "this piece of text
> >         is going to be interactively edited"...
> >   liam: I imagine a print processor would set this to "batch" - not edited.
> >   liam: You care about editted or not because if you insert a word in the
> >         middle of a paragraph, and you use a multi-line linebreaking algo,
> >         your text will reflow and your insertion point might move up or
> >         down a line.
> >   liam: Some programs handle this by only reflowing when you finish editing,
> >         but it's ugly in the meantime.  It's a problem with a long history.
> >   liam: Two parts of this proposal:
> >   liam: 1) Say your intent, interactive or batch.
> >   liam: 2) Second, experimentally, say what algorithm to use.
> ...
> 
> I just want to say here that I think it's very important that whatever
> happens in this area, renderers are allowed to apply higher-quality
> linebreaking algorithms to documents *without* authors having to opt
> in.

I agree strongly - my suggestion was (and remains) to make the default
implementation dependent. The goal is to make it easier for browsers &
CSS formatters to experiment with higher quality line-breaking
algorithms, such as n-line, but to provide a mechanism (as you say) for
preventing possible problems.

Thanks,

Liam

-- 
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org freenode/#xml
The barefoot typographer, http://www.holoweb.net/~liam/

Received on Thursday, 11 April 2013 02:36:26 UTC