Jukka K. Korpela wrote: > On Mon, 21 May 2007, david wrote: > >> Why would you need to start a new line in the middle of a paragraph? I >> think that if you think about it, you'll find you're doing it to put a >> different item inside it, like a list? > > A fairly common case is a longish expression, such as an inline > quotation or a piece program code, which appears as part of the paragraph > text. You might wish to present it on a line of its own, possibly with > indentation. Using <br> is the practical way. If you want indentation, you > can wrap the content between the <br> tags inside a <span> and assign e.g. > left padding to it. Using just <span> and CSS isn't practical, since you > would need to use :before and :after pseudo-elements and generated > content, which aren't supported at all e.g. in IE.
Why would you need to do all that? You just put your inline quotation or program code in its own paragraph and adjust your margins that way. Why would you need to use :before or :after pseudo-elements at all? >> The <br> tag is very old HTML. I think it existed for those people who >> were well used to traditions in printed material and didn't want a blank >> line between their paragraphs! Before CSS arrived, you couldn't do >> anything about the extra space between paragraphs, IIRC. > > I don't think that was the reason for including <br> into HTML, but it > surely became common usage, which still prevails. And surely CSS offers > much more natural and flexible methods for making paragraphs appear in > "literary style". It does. But HTML predates CSS by a very long time ... -- David [EMAIL PROTECTED] authenticity, honesty, community ______________________________________________________________________ css-discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d IE7 information -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=IE7 List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
