[Pmwiki-users] Markup...

[Christian Ridderström]

On 13 Jan 2004, John Rankin wrote:

> 
> On Tuesday, 13 January 2004 10:35 AM, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 12, 2004 at 06:39:00PM +0100, Christian Ridderstr?m wrote:
> > 
> > So I'm just confused now... why use a definition list to insert quotes 
> > (indented paragraph), instead of <div>...</div>?
> 
> One could potentially use the <blockquote> tag, but most browsers force
> extra vertical space around a <blockquote>, which is undesirable in
> many contexts.  

Umm... if it's supposed to be a quoted paragraph, shouldn't we be using 
<blockquote>, i.e. what's wrong with using CSS to remove the vertical 
spacing of the <blockquote>?

> Also, as I understand it, <blockquote> can optionally be rendered with pull
> quotation marks around it, although no current browsers do this by default.
> 
> See http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/text.html#h-9.2.2.1

Well, they say:

	Note. We recommend that style sheet implementations provide a
	mechanism for inserting quotation marks before and after a
	quotation delimited by BLOCKQUOTE in a manner appropriate to
	the current language context and the degree of nesting of
	quotations.

	However, as some authors have used BLOCKQUOTE merely as a
	mechanism to indent text, in order to preserve the intention
	of the authors, user agents should not insert quotation marks
	in the default style.

In the default style we ought not get quotation marks. OTOH, they say:

	The usage of BLOCKQUOTE to indent text is deprecated in favor
	of style sheets.

So in conclusion:
 - If '::' should be a quoted thing, we should use <blockquote>
 - If '::' it should just be an indented thing we should be using <div>.

Pm wrote:
	I'm still very open to the idea of defining a '->', '-->',
	'--->' markup for indented paragraphs, and we can have it
	render as either <blockquote> or <div>, however the group
	wants.  Someone may have to help me with the CSS properties to
	get <div> to indent properly, however.  Or, rather than use a
	<div> we could use <blockquote> but define the CSS properties
	for <blockquote> so that it has the desired rendering
	characteristics.

I'd like this markup translation (where they must start a line):
  * '->', '-->' etc for indented paragraphs using DIV
  * '::' for quoted paragraphs using BLOCKQUOTE

/Christian

-- 
Dr. Christian Ridderstr?m, +46-8-768 39 44       http://www.md.kth.se/~chr