Re: An issue with the Unicode BiDi Algorithm

You would use a <br> if you wanted, for some reason, to have a linebreak 
in the middle of a paragraph.

> What I mean is, <p>'s and <br>'s 
> have semantic significance, they're not just vehicles for visual style 

The reason that you are getting a problem in display is *precisely* for 
that reason. There is a real semantic difference between <br> and <p>, one 
that is recognized by the BIDI algorithm (*after* applying the W3C 
recommendations for how to deal with <br>).

"1. xxxx <br>2. xxxx" is all part of one paragraph semantically, so as far 
as the bidi algorithm is concerned, it is the same as having "1. 
xxxx<space>2. xxxx" where there happened to be a line-wrap before the "2". 
What the user really wanted is separate paragraphs, one starting with "1." 
and the next starting with "2.".

BTW, I'll be out the rest of the week, and won't be able to respond.

Mark
___
mark.davis@us.ibm.com
IBM, MS 50-2/B11, 5600 Cottle Rd, SJ CA 95193
(408) 256-3148




Eyal Rozenberg <eyalroz@technion.ac.il> 
02.15.2005 05:05 AM

To
Mark Davis/Cupertino/IBM@IBMUS, bidi@unicode.org, public-i18n-core@w3.org
cc

Subject
Re: An issue with the Unicode BiDi Algorithm






Mark Davis wrote:
> ...  it appears to be that the bug filers want to treat
> <br> as if it really does start another paragraph, but one without 
> paragraph spacing.
 > ...
> So it seems like what the people really want would be to use a <p 
> style="margin:0"> instead of a <br>.

But then, why should <br> ever be used? What I mean is, <p>'s and <br>'s 
have semantic significance, they're not just vehicles for visual style 
which you override with something like "margin:0". e.g. I may want to 
break a line without breaking the paragraph, and it is reasonable for me 
to want to write an RTL sentence which ends with an LTR word before the 
period on the first line, followed on the next line by an RTL sentence 
which happens to begin with, say, a number. They may be two sentences 
forming a single paragraph semantically, which should not have to be 
split up just so as to display like one would expect them to.

So, is there some compelling reason why neutrals at ends of lines should 
not have the same direction as that of the paragraph (with no control
characters present of course)?

Eyal

PS - I'm assuming it is appropriate for me to also CC the two mailing 
lists; if that is not the case, please let me know.