Re: Line breaking (<NOBR>, <WBR>)

Paul Prescod <papresco@calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca> gave the 
following reason for not including <WBR> and <NOBR> in HTML:

> Simply because line breaking is a purely presentational
> feature that is only meaningful in certain mediums. As such,
> it should go in a style sheet.

Then was the inclusion of <BR> and &nbsp; in HTML a mistake 
(not to mention <B>, <I>, ALIGN, and all the rest)?  For that 
matter, capitalization is a purely presentational feature that 
is only meaningful in certain mediums--should it be handled by 
style sheets?

How would one use a style sheet to do the equivalent of <NOBR>? 
Something like

    <SPAN CLASS=PHONE>+1 703 683 0683</SPAN>

with PHONE indicated as nonbreaking in the stylesheet?  Or 
perhaps 

    <SPAN CLASS=NOBREAK>H-P</SPAN> calculators

?

As for <WBR>, I don't see how style sheets would handle it. 
Does the style definition include a list of the characters
after which line breaks are allowed?  If so, then if "/" were
defined as one of them, we'd need a nonbreaking slash (for,
say, "1/2") as well as the nonbreaking space and hyphen.

Keith C. Ivey <kcivey@cpcug.org>
Washington, DC
Untangling the Web <http://www.eei-alex.com/eye/utw/>

Received on Sunday, 21 July 1996 20:41:45 UTC