Others have outlined the reasons not to use <pre> tags, so I won't go on about that too much, but to say that it's inappropriate to reformat "preformatted" text IMHO. That's just opinion, though.
There are arguments both ways with regard to the use of whitespace as a part of "content" as opposed to as a purely presentational aspect, such that the meaning of the poem may be influenced by the use of spacing (there are reasons poets format things in the first place, and as web developers there is a responsibility to preserve as much as possible of the source medium in transition). Whilst it's difficult to make this accessible to non-sighted users, that doesn't mean we stop trying for "accessibility" altogether. The problem with the example below is that it will NOT display well in any browser which doesn't adequately support stylesheets (or rather, support stylesheets at all). <span> is an inline element, by default, and if we change its behaviour using CSS, the poem is liable to render as follows: "Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,As he landed his crew with care;Supporting each man on the top of the tideBy a finger entwined in his hair. My mail client has wrapped that -- it'd obviously extend further. Mordechai Peller's last solution in his first email, however, would enable the display of unstyled content to be quite acceptable in user agents: > <p class="stanza"> > <span>"Just the...<br /> > As he...</span> > <span>Supporting...<br /> > By a....</span> > </p> I think that's the most workable solution proposed yet... Josh On Mon, 2004-10-25 at 08:17, Patrick H. Lauke wrote: > Joshua Street wrote: > > > >> What's the recommended practice with indentation? > > Uh - is there any reason not to use <pre>? > > Charles Eaton wrote: > > I'll second that with the css code of "white-space" > > Well, I wouldn't say the spaces are part of the content, but rather > they're a part of the presentation, based on the traditional way of > presenting poems of this nature on paper...so they'd belong purely in > the CSS and not in the markup (even if it's only a few space characters). > > In the absence of a "line" element in xhtml (like the one proposed for > xhtml 2.0 <http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/mod-text.html#sec_9.7.>), > something like this would probably be an acceptable solution > > <blockquote class="poem"> > <p> > <span>Just the place for a Snark!Ã the Bellman cried,</span> > <span>As he landed his crew with care;</span> > <span>Supporting each man on the top of the tide</span> > <span>By a finger entwined in his hair.</span> > </p> > > <p> > ... second stanza ... > </p> > > <p> > ... third stanza ... > </p> > > etc > > </blockquote> > > with a css of > > blockquote.poem span { display: block; } > blockquote.poem span:first-child + span, blockquote.poem > span:first-child + span + span + span { text-indent: 2em; } > > Of, if we wanted to go for CSS 3 (if it were supported anywhere), that > last line could be boiled down to > > blockquote.poem span:nth-child(2n+2) { text-indext: 2em; } > > or shorthanded to > > blockquote.poem span:nth-child(even) { text-indext: 2em; } > > Of course, neither the CSS 2 nor the CSS 3 method work in IE...so > classes on the spans it is, I think. > > Patrick H. Lauke > _____________________________________________________ > reÂdux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively > [latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.] > www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk > http://redux.deviantart.com > > ****************************************************** > The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ > > See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm > for some hints on posting to the list & getting help > ****************************************************** Joshua Street base10solutions Website: http://www.base10solutions.com/ Phone: (02) 9898-0060 Fax: (02) 8572-6021 Mobile: 0425 808 469 E-mails and any attachments sent from base10solutions are to be regarded as confidential. Please do not distribute or publish any of the contents of this e-mail without the senderâs consent. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender by replying to the e-mail, and then delete the message without making copies or using it in any way. Although base10solutions takes precautions to ensure that e-mail sent from our accounts are free of viruses, we encourage recipients to undertake their own virus scan on each e-mail before opening, as base10solutions accepts no responsibility for loss or damage caused by the contents of this e-mail. ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
