On 20 Feb 1998, Rick Troth wrote:
Aren't we bumping up against the content -vs- display problem?
If so, are we trying to do what has been wrongly done with HTML? That is,
to use a tool designed for content to acomodate presentation? Let's not.
Yes, I think so. I'm having a little trouble with meaning of the terms
"line break" and "paragraph". To me "paragraph" implies semantic mark up
(your "content") not display mark up.
What we're really talking about here is a text format that works well in
text controls, widgets, and gadgets on modern OS's. In these controls a
line break means "display the next character at the left margin (right for
semetic languages)." It also means "wrap the text between line break to
fit the display window". I think we must be explicit about these
characteristics for the definition of text/paragraph. I don't find the
term "paragraph" very concise.
The text/paragraph draft says it can be converted to text/plain by
wrapping at 72 columns. Seems you at least have to same "for example, by
wrapping at 72 columns" as 72 columns or any number of columns is not
specified by text/plain. Otherwise the draft is also adding definition to
text/plain.
So I'm going to stick my neck out here a bit and suggest that the two
characteristics of text/paragraph I'm suggesting above are not clearly in
violation of the text/plain definition. At least I can't see it at the
moment. The meaning of text/plain I get is that "line break means display
next character at the left(right) margin" and "this is the only thing a
line break can be used for." Further it seems ambiguous about wrapping as
there is no clear discussion of wrappin. Also it refers "no special
software required" and "as-is" as how you display the text/plain. These
seem very ambiguous and seem to imply things display & editing devices.
Even for the 822 days this seems ambiguous. Is it a VT100 in wrap mode or
not in wrap mode?
So if we're really going to do this right, how about another draft that
disambiguates text/plain and says lines must be shorter than 72
characters? That will provide a double motivation for moving to
text/paragraph faster, no?
LL