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

[Henrik Levkowetz <[e-mail]>]

On 2019-10-08 18:55, Paul Hoffman wrote:
> On 10/8/19 9:17 AM, Henrik Levkowetz wrote:
>>>> Sandy, does the RPC feel that the ability to add a line break is needed?
>>>
>>> Yes, the RPC would appreciate being able to use <br>.
>> 
>> 
>> Ok, I then propose that we permit <br> in body text, including lists and
>> tables, and in document and section titles.  More specifically, I propose to
>> permit <br> as a child element of these elements:
>> 
>>     blockquote
>>     dd
>>     dt
>>     em
>>     li
>>     name
>>     strong
>>     t
>>     td
>>     th
>>     title
>>     tt
>> 
>> (Should <sub> and <sup> be in that list?  If we compare with the places where
>> for instance <bcp14> is permitted, the answer would be 'yes'; but I'm not
>> sure it's the right thing to do.)
> 
> This seems to go well beyond what the RPC asked for and significantly muddies the semantics of the v3 format.
> 
> The concern of the folks who contributed to the v3 design is that <br> everywhere would have authors thinking that they could put in line breaks for emphasis, or for making the output look "right" without any semantic meaning. In the original HTML semantics, <br> is a block-level break, not a character formatting break.
> 
> Given that, I would propose to instead allow <br/> in the following:
> 
> blockquote
> dd
> li
> name
> t
> td
> th

So that removes dt, em, strong, title and tt.

<title> is one of the cases the RPC already ran into, so eliminating that
from the list will leave one of their cases unhandled.

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.

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.

As for dt, it will have similar issues as <title> and <name>.  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>.

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.


	Henrik


> (I strongly dislike having <br/> in <name>, but we allow other formatting there, so this should be allowed as well.)
> 
> Sandy: Would that suit the needs of the RPC?
> 
> --Paul Hoffman
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