- From: John Lewis <lewi0371@mrs.umn.edu>
- Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 21:33:18 -0600
- To: www-style@w3.org
Shelby wrote on Monday, December 16, 2002 at 7:35:31 PM: > The "correct" solution would be a CSS style. Whether it can be > implemented is another matter[...] I agree. If you don't use a markup language that determines what sentences are, you need something like a :sentence selector (or similar solution). But none of that matters until someone manages to create an algorithm to decide what a sentence is--that actually works--for most languages. Until that happens, it can't go in CSS. (*If* it happens--I'm not sure if it's even possible in English, especially if you include nonstandard English.) Today, you have a few solutions, none of which are very good. The only one that doesn't include content to force a presentation is by manually wrapping every sentence in span. And then you're adding tons of markup for a tiny stylistic issue. For these reasons, I think an end of sentence character is the best solution (and the only solution that could actually be put into practice without a huge amount of work). The big problem is that people won't use it--but I don't think it's wrong to deny people the ability to because the average person is wrong. Another problem is that it's extra work for the author--but as it shouldn't be required, that's not a big deal. PS: Every typography book I've read has insisted (and my own experience leads me to believe) that two or more spaces after a sentence make text harder to read (primarily because it creates large white gaps in running text, and in some cases causes diagonal or vertical lines of white space inside running text). I don't think this is any less true on a low resolution device (like a cellphone or PDA). If it is, and redesigning the typeface can't help, then neither can CSS (as it cannot increase the resolution of a display device). -- John
Received on Monday, 16 December 2002 22:39:18 UTC