Spacing Problem

krewenki · 2005-08-17 11:49:15

dhscompguy wrote:

We should really do away with linebreaks, though.
It can be argued that a linebreak has some semantic value (i.e., it further defines what is being written), but most authors use it in an entirely subjective fashion. They add breaks according to what feels right at the time. Usually they will do this based on the current display, which we as developers know changes drastically with different operating systems, browsers, font sizes, and screen resolutions.
Back in the days of the typewriter, authors had to backup one space and strike a key in order to bold a particular letter. This of course was a very time consuming process. To make things easier, the underscore was invented. This allowed certain words to be emphasized with greater ease. However, this convention is still being used today, despite the fact that there is no reason for it.
Underscoring is UGLY!
Like the underscore, the linebreak is a holdover from the days of the typewriter. Using that technology, which is restricted to output on paper, it makes good sense to speak of linebreaks, since the author is working within a well-defined set of constraints, typically 8 x 11. They can see all of the important aspects of the design right there in front of them.
When we're working with a WYSIWYG editor, we usually assume the same thing, even though publishing electronically is something quite different indeed. It's not well-defined. There is no such thing as a "page." These are old constructs... residual mind-garbage. We should dump that mode of backwards thinking.
We should simply tell users that this is a new medium and it doesn't work the same way as a typewriter, rather than caving into the caveman-demands of "ME WANT LINEBREAK! OOGA BOOGA!"

While this philosophy is the right one to have regarding web editing, it may not be the best general attitude to take. Our company has been using web based WYSIWYG editors for quite some time, and we've been struggling with the whole linebreak issue since day one. The reason we care, is because we're in Direct Mail. We use a webbased WYSIWYG (we used HTMLArea 3 until today), to allow users to customize text/layout of specific portions of print pieces they'll order through us. In this case, we *need* an intuitive interface, because these customers *expect* the application to function like a type writer, or a word processor.

While setting the style of all paragraph tags is an acceptable method to attain the desired look, the program we use to generate proofs (we create pdf's from HTML) ignores CSS, so the double spacing returns. I have some ideas to fix this problem, that i've been working on for some time, but I would love to have some solution in the mean time.

Has anyone come across anything, or had any ideas to solve this problem, until I get my CSS support in the back-end worked out?

rburko · 2006-08-15 19:59:26

Hi Guys,

First and foremost I just want to say that Xinha is amazing! I was pulling out my hair trying to get HTMLarea to work, but kept running into bug after bug. Finally I stumbled upon this and just about every problem was solved. So….thanks!

I know I’m posting a comment in an old thread, but this issue is the only problem I’m having.

There was a great debate in this thread about what is ‘proper’, whether it be tags, tags, styles, alternating styles, etc, etc. While everyone has a great point, I just need to scrap the P tags altogether.

I am using Xinha to assist people in putting together HTML emails and all I want is for them to be able to press ENTER and have it insert a BR. I know there are a whole bunch of downsides to that, but perfection is unfortunately a luxury I can’t have with my customers.

The P tags really distort the spacing and adding in styles doesn’t render properly in all email clients (not to mention increases the amount of HTML code, which spam filters look for).

Does anyone know how I can modify the code so that hitting ENTER (in both IE and/or FireFox) just inserts a BR? I don’t want it to insert P tags at all.

Thank you in advance for your help! I *really* appreciate it.

Cheers,

-- Robert

P.S. My apologies if there is some really basic answer for this sitting right in front of me that I’m totally missing.

gogo · 2006-08-16 02:33:23

Sadly, you may not have much luck with that. The best you can do is change the mozParaHandler config to 'built-in' that should do roughly what you want in Gecko; but in IE, basically you get what IE gives you, which is paragraphs.

gogo · 2006-08-16 02:33:57

The other option is for you to remove the paragraph tags server-side of course.

rburko · 2006-08-16 10:42:44

OH NO!

That’s exactly what I was hoping _not_ to hear.

Everything in Xinha is working so well, but this is a huge roadblock. As was said repeatedly in this thread, my customers expect the text area to work the same way as Word, and all this extra P-tag spacing is throwing them off a lot (…not to mention really distorts the layout of the email…).

Is there really no way to tweak the code so that pressing enter in IE inserts instead of putting text here?

I’m open to even the wildest and craziest ideas that will help move me closer to the way I need this to work.

Any other ideas?

gogo · 2006-08-16 12:46:20

It would not be a trivial task in IE, infact it may not even be possible at all, IE's facilities for doing this stuff (range manipulations etc) just are not good enough. Whatever the case, you'll have to know a goodly amount of javascript to even attempt it.

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Re: Spacing Problem

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