[pmwiki-users] formatting, indent

H. Fox haganfox at users.sourceforge.net
Mon Feb 6 22:06:40 CST 2006


On 07 Feb 2006 13:47:00 +1300, John Rankin <john.rankin at affinity.co.nz> wrote:
> Just an observation...
>
> I'm not clear why a markup is needed to "indent the first line
> of this paragraph". Arguably, this is a presentation decision
> best left to the administrator to set in a css.

That's a good point.  I'd still like to be able to use the book-like
paragraph markup, as an author, for specific purposes -- quoting from
a book, for example.

> A common print
> convention is to indent the first line of a paragraph if it
> follows another paragraph. But one doesn't normally indent the
> first line if it follows a heading, a list or some other flow
> break. As Hagan says, one might also want to set $HTMLVSpace =
> ''; -- AFAIK common practice is not to combine spacing with
> indenting.

Maybe that could be possible with something like

    Bork bork bork bork... bork.
    <>Borkbork bork... bork.
    <>Bork bork bork.

resulting in

     Bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork
     bork bork.  Bork bork bork bork bork bork-bork bork bork bork
     bork?  bork bork bork bork bork bork.
         Borkbork bork bork bork.  Bork bork bork bork bork bork bork
     bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork bork. bork.
         Borkbork bork bork.

> If it relies on markup to achieve first line indentation, what
> is the reader to make of a paragraph which isn't indented, or
> a long page with some paragraphs having the firt line indented
> but not others? If there are multiple authors, how will the
> indenting convention for the site be communicated and monitored?

By looking at the markup, I think.  (I may not be understanding...)

> I guess I'm suggesting that sites wanting this might like to
> consider setting a site or group-wide css rule, rather than
> adding a markup rule. I question whether it's pmwiki's job to
> produce output that's "just like in books" -- that's the job
> of a site-specific css. PmWiki already produces output that
> contains all the semantics necessary to format the site any
> way one chooses.

To expand on that thought, maybe some sites would want one
presentation style for the web and another for printing (or PDF output
 ;-)  ).  From the older thread about this:

: On 7/25/05, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
: > Just to expand on this; it might be possible to use a separate
: > print-media stylesheet to provide the different indentation style
: > for printed output as opposed to on-screen output.  Probably something
: > on the order of:
: >
: >    p.vspace { margin:0px; }
: >    p { text-indent:40px; }
: >
: > which will eliminate blank lines and cause all paragraphs to
: > have their first lines indented.

> The rule would be "if a p follows a p, indent the first line".
>
> Just my 0.05¢ on the subject.

Wow, you can still get a lot for a nickel these days.  :-)

My point here is: probably both should be available.  That is, both
administrators and authors should be able to choose to apply the
book-like style.

Hagan




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