- From: Smylers <Smylers@stripey.com>
- Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:40:12 +0000
Markus Ernst writes: > Ian Hickson schrieb: > > > I don't think this is a big enough problem to deserve solutions more > > complicated than the soft hyphen at this time. > > Jukka Korpela stated that the intention of the soft hyphen is not > actually a hyphenation hint: > http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/shy.html He claims that there are multiple standards that contradict each other. So whatever is implemented is bound to contravene at least one of them. However he mentions that: * HTML 4 defines it as a hyphenation hint. * Unicode defines it as a hyphenation hint. * Recent browsers are now treating it as a hyphenation hint. * The contradictory standard (ISO-8859) only defines a soft hyphen when used at the end of a line, namely that it should be rendered like a hyphen. Since that standard doesn't envisage the character being used elsewhere, it is silent on how it should be rendered. It seems to me that choosing to render invisibly a soft hyphen which isn't at the end of a line doesn't contradict the text of ISO-8859 (though it could be argued to contradict its spirit). > (Anyway I don't really understand the difference between a normal > hyphen and a soft hyphen then...) Suppose you are reflowing some text (perhaps because you are quoting it); words which were broken over lines in the original may want rejoining into a single word in your version (that is, the soft hyphen disappears); but hyphens (non-soft) between two words need to remain. Smylers
Received on Tuesday, 10 February 2009 05:40:12 UTC