Re: In support of the "line space" (nee <hr>)

Lorenzo De Tomasi wrote:
 > I have some suggestions for the <hr> element, that can be renamed as
 > graphicline, gline, linespace, linebreak, etc.
 >
 > I think that some new attributes must be added:
 >
 > 1. height="1px", 2px, 1pt, etc.
 >      or better stroke="", as used in DTP programs like Adobe
 >      Illustrator and Photoshop
 >    how much the line is thin or fat
 > 2. color="black", etc.
 >   the color of the line
 >   I think that the best is that, if the color is not specified or
 > specified as default, the browser automatically chooses the default
 > color depending to the background color: white for dark bkgs, black
 > for light bkgs, etc.
 >
 > 3. width="full", percent: 100%, 50%, pixels: 300px, points: 300pt,
 > etc.
 >
 > 4. align="left", right, center
 >
 > 5. margin="default", double, 12px, 12pt, etc.
 >   or better leading="", as used in DTP programs like Adobe 
Illustrator >   and Photoshop
 >   the relative distance from the last line of text
 >   I think that the best is that, if the margin is not specified or
 > specified as default, the browser automatically chooses the default
 > margin as the leading of the last line of text
 >
 > 6. style="shade", noshade
 >   shaded 3D or flat 2D line
 >
 > The default should be
 > hr style="noshade" width="full" stroke="1px" color="default"
 > align="left"
 > margin="default"
 >
 > What do you think?


Regardless of which side you fall on the "hr is structure" versus "hr is 
presention" argument, these attributes are clearly all presentational 
and therefore undesirable. The general consensus is that XHTML should 
have nothing to do with presentation beyond linking to an external 
stylesheet or declaring an internal stylesheet.

Everything you've suggested here can be easily achieved with CSS:

hr {
    margin-top:5px; margin-bottom:5px;
    width:75%;
    border-width:1px; border-style:groove;
}



- Chris Mannall.

Received on Wednesday, 21 August 2002 06:17:23 UTC