Re: <BR align=xxx>

Joe English (joe@trystero.art.com)
Sat, 25 Feb 95 20:10:49 EST

wmperry@spry.com wrote:

> I proposed (and implemented in emacs-w3, and chris wilson did it in AIR
> Mosaic) the
> <align role=center|right|left|justify>
> </align>
> container that would do something similar to netscapes <center></center>,
> but more extensible. Implies one line break at each end.
> If you changed <br> to affect the text _AFTER_ it, this is equivalent to:
> <br align=xxxxxx>
> <br align=xxxxx>
> Which I think is wrong - stuff like this should be in containers if at
> all possible.

I agree.

<ALIGN> is still a special-purpose container though --
why not introduce a general-purpose one like, say, <DIVISION>
or <DIV>, that could be used to specify alignment (with
an ALIGN= attribute), identify link targets (with an ID=
attribute), style sheet processing (with ROLE=), languages
(with LANG=), or whatever else gets invented later?

<!ELEMENT DIV - - (%body.content;)>
<!ATTLIST DIV
ROLE NAME #IMPLIED
ID ID #IMPLIED
ALIGN (left|center|right) #IMPLIED
-- others... --
>

The semantics of DIV would be similar to the IBM ID Doc
"ContainingDivision" architectural form (an arbitrary
logical section of the document).

DIV should be fully recursive, i.e., it should be added
to the %body.content; parameter entity.

It should (like ALIGN and CENTER) imply a line break
before and after the element. This would be fully compatible
with existing browsers, since all elements in %body.content;
(with %HTML.Recommended; turned on) already specify line breaks,
and there are no other essential display semantics
(assuming that text alignment is not considered "essential".)

--Joe English

jenglish@crl.com