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Subject: Re: DOCBOOK: Line breaks
> 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. 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. This issue comes up most often in converting to Docbook some content from another markup language such as HTML that has the concept of <newline>. If you are converting the content of a table cell, for example, you have to first scan the entire contents of the table cell to see if it contains a <newline> to decide if you should wrap the cell content in <literallayout> or not. bobs Bob Stayton 400 Encinal Street Publications Architect Santa Cruz, CA 95060 Technical Publications voice: (831) 427-7796 The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. fax: (831) 429-1887 email: bobs@sco.com
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