Re: DOCBOOK: Changing <p>...</p> to <p> in DSSSL stylesheets

[Mårten Lindström <marten.lindstrom@swipnet.se>]

----- Original Message -----
From: Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>

> / Mårten Lindström <marten.lindstrom@swipnet.se> was heard to say:

> | If so, ensuring legal HTML would mean creating entirely new P elements
for
> | any freefloating #PCDATA _and_ translating the containing PARA into a
HTML
> | DIV (or omitting it).
>
> If you're going to go this far, then the DIVs are completely
> unnecessary, just translate the preceding list into two <p>'s
> and a <ul>.

I did not mean to promote this as a practical solution. I only wanted to
have as much as possible of this made clear (to myself).

> | I know practically nothing about DSSSL/Jade but suspect that would not
be
> | easy to do. (Just dropping all para end tags certainly seems a lot
simpler.)
>
> Exactly. Doing "the right thing" would be difficult and would
> would require, unless I'm overlooking something, a linear,
> character by character, walk through each paragraph. Can you say
> "performance impact".  I knew you could.

I am with you entirely (especially since I presently am working on a not
very up-to-date machine).

>
> So the bottom line is this: empty <p> tags would be right
> sometimes and wrong no more frequently (since the browser (i.e.,
> any SGML parser reading the HTML doctype (hahahaha---he said
> browser and SGML parser in the same sentence, hehehehe)) inserts
> the </p> tags at the first block and ignores the (now bogus)
> </p> tags anyway).
>
> | But is anyone using such para elements anyway?
>
> Sometimes. I really want to write
>
> <para>some introduction to a list:
> <orderedlist>...</orderedlist>
> </para>

I guess I have been maladjusted by all the HTML, a bit like a cave dweller
exiting into the sunlight for the first time in his life. It takes some
readjustment to realize how to make use of the richer possibilities of
DocBook.

Mårten