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Subject: Re: DOCBOOK: Line breaks
/ Bob Stayton <bobs@sco.com> was heard to say: | > From: Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> | > | > | <aside>Er..uhmm..I am asking these questions in the assumption | > | that a request for including something like "newline" | > | in DocBook would be a vain one - though "newline" is, | > | is it not, structural information?<duck/></aside> | > | > No, it's purely presentational. What semantic meaning does it | > have? And how do you propose to implement your markup on a PDA | > or speaking cell phone? At least with a variablelist, you can | > identify the terms and imagine doing something else for limited | > display environments. | | I'm certain you are not saying that all line breaks | are purely presentational. After all, Docbook supplies | <literallayout> and <programlisting> to preserve line | breaks where they have semantic meaning, such as | poetry and program code. You're right, but arbitrary, random linebreaks are rarely more than presentational. And I'm not saying authors don't want to do it, but DocBook does try to remain as structural as possible. For environments where linebreaks are usually relevant (addresses, etc.) DocBook provides things like literallayout. To date, no one has presented a situation (except in CommandSynopsis where we have <sbr>) that seemed to justify adding an arbitrary linebreak element to DocBook. Cheers, norm -- Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> | Things work out best for those who http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | make the best of the way things Member, DocBook Editorial Board | work out.
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