[pmwiki-users] RFC: Core candidate offerings

[Joachim Durchholz]

Patrick R. Michaud schrieb:
> It's not at all fair (to me) for people to continually claim that we
> can simply eliminate the <p class='vspace'></p> tags from PmWiki's
> output,  until and unless such claims also include an explanation
> of how we can achieve equivalent vertical spacing effects in the
> middle of lists and other constructs.  *That* is why the
> <p class='vspace'></p> tags exist.

I think this discussion is mixing up two unrelated issues.

The first issue is what PmWiki markup should be used to indicate 
vertical space inside list items. PmWiki uses an empty line.

The second is whether to use vspace paragraphs for empty vertical space. 
Or whether to use such vspace paragraphs for *all* vertical space.

On the second issue, I think that vspace paragraphs can be eliminated. 
Outside of lists, it's easy to do using the appropriate margin settings. 
Inside lists, there's always the possibility to plop in two <br /> tags. 
It's even possible to control the size of such a vertical space via CSS: 
put the <br /> tags into a <span> and apply font-size styling.
Alternatively, list items could be made into sequences of paragraphs. 
Then the normal paragraph styling will take place.
This approach demonstrates a certain tension between different uses of 
bullet lists:
1) If the list simply enumerates short snippets of text, we don't want 
the usual pre-paragraph and post-paragraph margins. The whole list is 
just a way to make a comma-separated list stand out.
2) If the list contains paragraphs, we do want the usual pre-paragraph 
and post-paragraph margins. (What I'm writing right now is an example of 
such a bullet list.)

So in summary, I think we actually need two markups (or, rather, two 
variants of the list markups): a "small" one that doesn't add any 
vertical margins (and doesn't offer a way to insert vertical space), and 
a "large" one that treats every list item as a separate paragraph (and 
that may contain additional paragraphs, block markup like [@...@], and 
whatnot).

Now with that structure, the need for vspace paragraphs vanishes. 
"Small" lists don't need facilities for inserting vspace. "Large" lists 
would be generated as
   <ul>
     <li>
       <p>
         Lorem ipsum...
       </p>
     </li>
     <li>
       <p>
         Lorem ipsum...
       </p>
     </li>
     <li>
       <p>
         Lorem ipsum...
       </p>
     </li>
   <ul>
so normal paragraph formatting (including all the style information from 
the CSS file) will take effect. Skin authors will be able to format 
according to what their standard handbooks say, without having to think 
about when there will be a <p class="vspace"></p>.

Just my 2c. HTH.

Regards,
Jo