----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Holt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 2:27 PM
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Ken Shillito <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2001 9:32 PM
> > Some naughty HTML writers put &NBSP;`s for multiple spaces, but this is
> > frowned upon in the HTML standard.
> Could you elaborate on that? I had heard it too, but when I went to the
W3C
> pages to check it out, I did not find that it was deprecated, and it was
in
> a table titled "Table 3.2: Some characters that affect text format but are
> suitable for use with markup" Here --> http://www.w3.org/TR/unicode-xml/
I should have been more specific. Of course, the NBSP is not a deprecated
character. What is deprecated is the use of NBSP`s to place block elements,
e.g. for putting things into columns. I'm impressed with your reference to a
specific authority above. The table you refer to simply says that you can
use
NBSP's in stateless text strings which can be cut & pasted etc. But using
NBSPs to
lay out columns (i.e. as a sort of TAB character) is what I meant by
"naughty".
To be technical about it, NBSP should only be used as itself - i.e. to make
a
SPC-sized gap between characters, which unlike SPCcannot be used as a line
break.
> Am I reading that wrong, or is it someone else's frown you are referring
to?
Yes to the first question, but my fault. No to the second. Chris you are a
very polite
person.
> I'm asking because what I'm commonly hearing is that using tables for
> formatting is frowned upon in general as opposed to using CSS, but other
> than tables, I don't see an easy way to get vertical space in a page
design
> without resorting to &NBSP's.
"vertical" - presume you mean horizontal. For vertical use <BR>`s in the
same non-intended way as using NBSPs for horizontal ;-)
Yes! That's one of the reasons CSS was developed. But a non-CSS page
should use tables for formatting, not NBSP`s. It is not tables per se that
are
frowned upon, but tables which measure widths in pixels, rather than
percentages. %s are less machine-specific than pixels. That's precisely the
problem with using NBSPs for laying out columns and positioning non-
text elements &c - they are highly machine specific - the NBSP width
depends absolutely on the specific font of the specific computer you
are using at the time, and given that defaults are often set in preferences,
what works on one computer may not work on another, even if it's the
same platform.
None of the above takes away from the "webtrains" - they are cute little
things which in no way violate the principles of HTML.
What the above does show, is the urgency of getting CSS going on the
Amiga - many of the tags which we must use for style are already
deprecated, and we can expect them to be phased out. Hopefully
my Unicode (which will be PD) will be done soon, and that is the
hardest aspect of CSS, so maybe by the end of 2001 we'll have
CSS2 available for HTML viewers such as V. Ollie is busily
ironing out the bugs from JS. That only leaves JAVA to be done.
_____________________________________________________________________
Voyager Mailing List - http://v3.vapor.com/
Voyager FAQ....: http://faq.vapor.com/voyager/
Listserver Help: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Subject=HELP
Unsubscribe....: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Subject=UNSUBSCRIBE
