Give hint to browser about hyphenation: &php;

Hi,

as programmer of dynamic content pages based on eg. databases I often
encounter the problem of long words that break the design. The reason being
that the browser cannot hyphenate words.

The only workaround I know of is to let the serverscripts detect if there
are very long words in the text and break it up in some clever way. For
instance you may map:
storstrømsbrosekspropriationskommissionsmedlemmer -> storstrømsbros-
ekspropriations- kommissions- medlemmer    (obviously a ridiculously long
Danish word)
The point is that the "- " alows the browser to break up the word and
virtually hyphenate the word. It is of course not ideal, since the server
doesn't know about the font chosen by the browser etc.

Hence I suggest that a new special character is introduced (eg. &php;
"Possible Hyphenation Position") that authors may put inside very long words
at positions where hyphenation is possible according to the language in
which the document is written. The browser could use it for the above
mentioned situation and neglect it otherwise. The above situation would
read:
storstrømsbrosekspropriationskommissionsmedlemmer ->
storstrømsbros&php;ekspropriations&php;kommissions&php;medlemmer

Remark: In the markup language called LaTeX there is one such special
character/command: \-

Yours sincerely

Søren Hattel


Søren Hattel, Civilingeniør, ph. d.
Systemudvikler
Netbureauet Araneum
Havnegade 39, st.
1058 København K
e-mail:  hattel@na.dk
telefon: 33 73 44 56
www.na.dk