Re: [xml2rfc-dev] [Ext] Re: [xml2rfc] [Rfc-markdown] <br> is back, was: New xml2rfc release: v2.32.0

[Paul Hoffman <[e-mail]>]

On 10/8/19 10:51 AM, Henrik Levkowetz wrote:
> So that removes dt, em, strong, title and tt.

Another way to look at this is to say "it does not include them in a new design".
  
> <title> is one of the cases the RPC already ran into, so eliminating that
> from the list will leave one of their cases unhandled.

I agree with Julian: putting <br> in a title for various reasons can cause various bad side-effects.

Sandy: Can you tell the group what the specific need that the RPC saw for <br> in <title>?
  
> The case I made in the original issue #37 still holds:  Limiting <br> too
> strongly will result in a lot of surprises for authors, when they expect
> to be able to use <br/>, but the validation fails.  I think this is
> applicable for em, strong, and tt.

There is literally no way to avoid surprises for authors in v3, or in v2. Document formatting always has surprises.

> Additionally, the case Sandy mentioned where the author wanted a piece of
> text set on two lines is very likely to come up for <tt>, so not permitting
> <br> there seems wrong.

<t>
<tt>This is the first line</tt><br>
<tt>This is the second line</tt>
</t>
... is exactly the right semantics for what a line break is meant to do.
  
> As for dt, it will have similar issues as <title> and <name>.  

It will also have the same problems.

> It will only
> become an issue when the RPC runs into a case where there's a long <dt>
> text which doesn't display well without <br>.

This is not about "display well", it is about semantics. One of the overarching goals of the v3 work was to have semantically sensible long-lived documents that can be displayed in a variety of formats on a variety of types of displays.

> I think the right thing, both for the RPC and authors in general, is to have
> <br> available everywhere they might end up using it, rather than restricting
> it too strongly.

We should hear directly from the RPC about their needs. Also, none of us in this conversation are good representatives of typical authors of RFCs because we are already too familiar with v2 and v3 and XML and so on.

--Paul Hoffman