Re: SPaces and Tabs in HTML documents
kevin@scic.intel.com (Kevin Altis)
Message-id: <9306141759.AA27367@rs042.scic.intel.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 10:58:53 -0800
To: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
From: kevin@scic.intel.com (Kevin Altis)
X-Sender: kevin@rs042.scic.intel.com
Subject: Re: SPaces and Tabs in HTML documents
I believe the proper thing to do is to have a way of specifying horizontal
whitespace as well as settings for tabs specified in units (inches,
centimeters, and points at a minimum). Support for right justification is
important, especially to support text that reads right to left such as
arabic, hebrew and kanji. Full justification would be nice, but is
complicated. The ability for an author to specify a recommended style sheet
per document, defining typefaces, point sizes, tab settings, etc. would be
beneficial.
Monospaced typefaces such as Courier are not commonly used to view
documents outside of DOS, character based terminals and shell windows. In
graphical environments and printing, the width of a "space" or
uninterpreted "tab" will vary widely depending on typeface (Times,
Helvetica, etc.), type size, "style" (bold, italics, etc.), so documents
created today that make assumptions about whitespace by using "space"
characters are going to look real bad tomorrow. Just look at the
progression of documents on the Mac, Windows and Unix as people figured
that out, not to mention proper use of double quotes, capitalization, and
other grammar and punctuation (See Robin Wiliams "The Mac is not a
typewriter" or "The PC is not a typewriter" at your local bookstore).
Scalable font technology (ATM and Truetype), fractional spacing support in
applications, kerning between characters and words, etc. can all change the
look of a document, particularly one relying on the use of spaces for
whitespace. Also, keep in mind that display resolutions and actual dots per
inch (dpi) of monitors varies and higher dpi monitors are becoming more
common (120 dpi has been available for a while).
There is no reason to assume 80 characters per line either.
Kevin Altis
Intel Corporation
SuperComputer Systems Division
Beaverton, Oregon