Re: simple HTML list considered harmful

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From: Dave_Raggett <dsr@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
Message-id: <9309290902.AA22253@manuel.hpl.hp.com>
Subject: Re: simple HTML list considered harmful
To: kevin@scic.intel.com
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 93 10:02:14 BST
Cc: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
Mailer: Elm [revision: 66.36.1.1]

Some of your have mentioned the <BR> (line break) tag as a solution to
Kevin's problem of how to layout postal addresses in a proportional font.

Many people have suggested that <BR> isn't quite right during the WWW workshop
and in subsequent discussions. Would anyone object to the proposal to replace
it with the <L> tag which acts as a container for the following line, e.g.

With slight simplifications, this would be defined by:

        <!ELEMENT P - O (L+ | %text;)>
        <!ATTLIST P id ID #IMPLIED>

        <!ELEMENT L - O (%text;)>
        <!ATTLIST L id ID #IMPLIED>

e.g. for Kevin's purpose:

        <P>
        <L>First Last
        <L>Address line 1
        <L>Address line 2
        <L>City, State, Zip
        <L>Phone
        <L>Fax
        <L>email

<L> is cleaner than <BR> since:

    a)  Each line of text is contained by the preceding <L>
        whereas <BR> acted as a line separator. Thus <P> and <L>
        use the same model and are a better fit with SGML practice

    b)  <L> allows you to identify each line explicitly, e.g. for
        hypertext links or other cross references

I will have the new draft for HTML+ as a discussion paper within a few days,
and would very much like peoples views and suggestions on this and other
topics.

Regards,

Dave Raggett