Re: [xml2rfc-dev] RFC 7991 issue #37: Schema Issue, RFC 7991, In Section 2.12, <br>

[Henrik Levkowetz <[e-mail]>]

On 2018-10-04 19:18, Robert Sparks wrote:
> I didn't see a response to this.
> 
> If we decide that preserving the "only in tables" idea, this avoids the 
> argument about causing authors unnecessary confusion.
> 
> If it's clearly a bad idea, please capture why on the list for later.
> 
> RjS
> 
> 
> On 10/2/18 12:56 PM, Paul Hoffman wrote:
>> I just thought of something different that might deal with Miek's
>> issue: change the name of the element to <tbr>. That will prevent
>> people who "know" what <br> "means" from expecting it to work
>> because <br> doesn't exist.
>> 
>> If, later, we want to add <br> for running text (with lots of
>> description of what it will and will not do to displayed RFCs), we
>> can do so then.


So, Miek's original issue, as communicated to me, as I understood it,
found reasonable, and tried to capture in #37, was that <br> was generally
unavailable, but the functionality existed specifically within table cells.

Miek has also raised a related issue, #41, about not having so many special
cases in the schema.

Finally, <br> is a known tool for authors acquainted with HTML, if they
have a situation where default layout doesn't do the right thing.

So renaming <br> to <tbr> will deal with the expectation of <br> being
generally useful, since it's not called <br> any more.  It will probably
leave some authors without remedy for the case of controlling table
column title breaks, as they won't think to look for <tbr> if <br> doesn't
work.

The renaming will not do anything for issue #41, and it will also do nothing
to address the need for a straightforward capability like <br> in other
contexts.

So I don't see this a clean solution, and the parts it solves also introduces
new drawbacks.

I tried to capture what I felt was the essence of the problem in my proposed
resolution, of either permitting <br> widely, or removing it.  I still don't
care much either way, but <tbr> seems to provide neither the cleanness of
removing <br> it completely, or permitting it more generally.


	Henrik