- From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 01:52:15 +0000 (UTC)
- To: Sam Ruby <rubys@us.ibm.com>
- Cc: Henri Sivonen <hsivonen@iki.fi>, public-html <public-html@w3.org>
On Thu, 6 Dec 2007, Sam Ruby wrote: > > > > > > > > <wbr> isn't valid HTML (and never has been). > > > > > > Should it be? :-) > > > > > > i.e., does it serve a useful purpose? Does it cause any backwards > > > compatibility problems? > > > > As far as I can tell it's redundant with the Unicode zero width space > > and zero width non-joiner characters. > > The issue is that broken browsers display such characters as rectangles > and the like. Browsers that don't have explicit support <wbr> may or > may not accept the hint, but the result is generally better than with > the Unicode alternative. Sure, but working around bugs in one browser's handling of the spec's requirements by adding new requirements that aren't met by other browsers either is not generally a successful strategy. > Whether it is I've found this to be handy, and I see it recommended from > time to time on the web, for example: > > http://gojomo.blogspot.com/2005/03/cross-browser-invisible-word-break-in.html > http://www.quirksmode.org/oddsandends/wbr.html The failure of those spaces to work is something that we should ensure is tested, for sure. > P.S. The reason I did not understand the original message is that I do > see wbr mentioned in the current draft of the html5, and I don't see > where it declares that it is an error. It's not a parse error, but there's no way to include it in an HTML document without violating the content models. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Received on Wednesday, 13 February 2008 01:52:31 UTC