Re: simulating <br>

If you ask me, multiple <br> tags should produce n - 1 blank lines (n being the
number of <br> tags).  Here is why:

Suppose the UA sees "start <br><br><br> end".  It should render it like this:
start


end
Notice the two blanks lines between start and end.  It would get to the first
<br> and recognize a line break (which means end the current line of text... ie
a carriage return).  So on line 2 it sees the next <br> and inserts another
carriage return.  It doesn't matter if there is other text on the line or not.
Now on line 3 is sees the last <br> and again inserts a line break.

There should be no colapsing of multiple <br>'s.  I have read (somewhere on the
w3 site I think) that using multiple <br> tags to insert blank space IS
generally considered bad practice, because the author should use style sheets to
accomplish that instead.  And I agree with that.  But that doesn't mean that the
way <br> tags are handled should be changed.
-Peter





Vincent Lefevre <"vincent+www"@vinc17.org> on 10/25/2000 11:56:50 AM

To:   www-style@w3.org
cc:    (bcc: Peter Foti)

Subject:  Re: simulating <br>

On Wed, Oct 25, 2000 at 17:40:19 +0200, Daniel Glazman wrote:
> Désolé Vincent, but this is not a question of semantics. It
> is a question of common practice. Dozens of millions of web
> pages have been published where multiple-<BR> equals
> multiple-line-breaks.

The common practice isn't a good reason. Or at least, several
<BR>'s should be regarded as bad HTML.

> BR is what people expect it to be. I don't think that any
> browser/editor vendor will ever run against that, at least
> for HTML ;-)

I wish the browsers I use could collapse <BR>'s. There are pages that
use too many of them and need to be scrolled too much often.

--
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.org> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/> - 100%
validated HTML - Acorn Risc PC, Yellow Pig 17, Championnat International des
Jeux Mathématiques et Logiques, TETRHEX, etc.
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / PolKA research team at LORIA