Re: [office] white-space processing proposal

[Michael Brauer - Sun Germany - ham02 - Hamburg <Michael.Brauer@Sun.COM>]

Dave Pawson wrote:
> Thanks Michael.
> Couple of additional comments inline.
> 
> 

> 
> 
> So the visual presentation may not match that of a person
> accessing the xml content directly?

The content.xml may contain sequences of white-space characters where only 
one is displayed, but that's the same as in HTML. I therefore don't think 
that's an issue.

> 
> 
> So a round trip contents.xml, into OpenOffice and back to xml without
> modification (by the user) may change the xml.

Yes. The same applies to KOffice, IBM Workplace, Sun StarOffice, etc.

> 
> 
> I think the point I'm taking away, which I don't like, is that any ODF
> implementation
> can modify the whitespace of an XML entity whether I want it or not.

Yes, that's true.

> Yet that is quite different to this case? Again you appear to be
> talking about an application.
> Are all HTML applications alike in their whitespace processing?
>   None of the browsers I use modify the source file.

A browser displays the file only. I would also not expect that an application 
that displays ODF modifies the source.

>>
>> > Is there any conflict with the HTML4 that could cause a dispute?
>>
>> I don't think so, but if we write "HTML" instead of "[HTML4]" we 
>> should be on
>> the safe side.
> 
> 
> Visually? I don't think this either clear or 'safe'.

Well, I think what's essential is that authors understand that they can make 
use of white-spaces in ODF the same way as in HTML without analyzing the 
rules. Any suggestion how to phrase that in better words is welcome.


> 
>> >
>> > Why is this only applicable to a paragraph element, and not to list
>> > content,
>> > table cells etc? I.e. all CDATA content.
>>
>> List and table cells contain paragraphs, so the rules apply there as 
>> well.
> 
> 
> So should it be generalised to all CDATA content to clarify?

I don't think so. The rules only apply to text content, and text content 
always is included in paragraphs.

Michael