Re: [Rfc-markdown] [rfc-i] [Tools-discuss] Tool to convert TXT to RFCXML

> On 17 Jul 2023, at 08:58, Martin Thomson <mt@lowentropy.net> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Jul 17, 2023, at 16:47, Carsten Bormann wrote:
>> * add <nobr or similar to RFCXML, so we don’t have to play the 
>> character substitution games.
> 
> This.  The way HTML does it is with CSS directives[1].  There is a lot of control over this through CSS, though for annoying reasons wrapping is still not fully specified.
> 
> For our purposes, it seems like a simple <nobr>...</nobr> element would be fine.  (Which leads me to ponder a new kramdown extension whereby words could be automatically wrapped in various span-level elements to ensure consistent styling for keywords...)

A word of caution.  The authoring markup languages are being pulled in two different directions and if that is not well managed then I fear we will end up with an even more complex way of working than exists now.  Those two directions are - does the markup represent formatting or does the markup represent semantics.  As I understand it, the original consensus design goal was to prioritise the representation of semantics.  i.e. not to prevent the formatting, but to capture the semantics first and then add finer grained formatting to that,

If we approach this specific issue from the semantic perspective then that would better be served by adding a new element, such as <term> … </term> that is intended to represent a technical term used inline in any body text and which therefore must remain as an atomic whole. 

We could then add finer grained semantic control that also leads to different formatting with <term type="maths"> or <term type="console"> etc.

Direct formatting could be achieved by allowing it to appear inside <tt> <em> etc, (though <tt> in my view is a mistake because it so obviously has clear semantic usages)

To be clear, this is not a full proposal. It’s too verbose and it doesn’t consider the existing <dt> and how that relates if at all.

Jay

> 
> [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/white-space in particular.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Rfc-markdown mailing list
> Rfc-markdown@ietf.org
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rfc-markdown

-- 
Jay Daley
IETF Executive Director
exec-director@ietf.org