Re: DOCBOOK: Line breaks

[Jon Bosak <bosak@boethius.eng.sun.com>]

[Terry Allen, quoting Bob Stayton:]

| | The context I have seen authors use ad hoc newlines are
| | usually something equivalent to <para role="weak">.  That
| | is, "end of that thought, start a new thought", but not a
| | full paragraph break.  I know it seems like a fine
| | distinction in the abstract, but it is important to the
| | author in that context.  When I tell authors that they have
| | to wrap their content in <literallayout> to preserve that
| | line break, I get ugly looks because they don't want to
| | preserve all line breaks, just that one.
| 
| I hope you give them ugly looks in return, Bob, because
| in print there are paragraphs and ... no such thing as
| nonparagraphs or demiparagraphs.

Nor demisemiparagraphs nor hemidemisemiparagraphs, though you will
find an occasional crotchet.

| If they haven't figured out whether they're starting a new
| para, they need to figure harder.
| 
| I know it's hard to get good help these days ...

Teach, Brother.

Bob, what happens to an "almost paragraph transition" when some
dynamic change in column width makes the new line visually identical
to a normal text line and thus indistinguishable from what comes
before and after?  And how do localization houses handle these things
when they find them in documentation to be translated?  Do they try to
create the same visual effect modulo changes in line length?

Jon