Re: lynx-dev hyphenation

[Chuck Martin]

On Sat, Jul 31, 1999 at 04:21:06PM -0500, Klaus Weide wrote:
> 
> >  Yes, will have a counter. (Does NOBR inhibbits justification or line 
> > wrapping
> > too)?
> 
> I don't know.  I think it's a Netscape invention, maybe someone here knows
> what it is indented to do, or where to look.

The first paragraph on page 99 of the 3rd Edition of _HTML, The Definitive
Guide_, from O'Reilly, says,

   "The modern browsers offer the <nobr> tag alternative to <pre> so
   you can be sure the enclosed text stays intact on a single line while
   retaining normal text style.  The effect is to make the browser treat
   the tag's contents as though they were a single, unbroken word.  The
   tag contents retain the current content style, and you can change to
   another style within the tag."

There is also a footnote that says, "Be aware that <nobr> and its
colleague <wbr> are extensions to the language and not part of the HTML
4.0 standard."  It doesn't say who added these extensions, but that
both Netscape and Internet Explorer use them.  There doesn't seem to
be any mention of justification, but at the bottom of the same page,
there's another paragraph that says,

   "Also, you might think this tag is needed only to suppress line breaks
   for phrases, not a sequence of characters without spaces that can
   exceed the browser window's display boundaries.  Today's browsers do
   not hyphenate words automatically, but someday soon, they probably
   will.  It makes sense to protect any break-sensitive sequence of
   characters with the <nobr> tag."

In spite of the book's title, I wouldn't say that these statements are
definitive, but they're at least worth considering.

Chuck