Re: p tags and indenting in Html Mode

[Richard Riley]

Tyler Smith <tyler.smith@eku.edu> writes:

> Richard Riley wrote:
>> pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:
>>   
>>> Tyler Smith <tyler.smith@eku.edu> writes:
>>>     
>>>> Html mode recognizes that <p> tags don't need to be closed, so
>>>> successive tags get indented to the same level. But when an unclosed
>>>> <p> tag is followed by a heading (e.g., <h3>), the heading gets
>>>> indented as if it were within the previous <p>, as do all subsequent
>>>> tags that aren't <p> tags. In other words, the heading is indented
>>>> further than the <p> tags that were there before. How can I get html
>>>> mode to keep the indentation at the same level? I put a small example
>>>> below to clarify.
>>>>
>>>>       
>>> Close your tags!  So your html becomes more compatible with xhtml.
>>>     
>>
>> A lot of web designers don't go anyway near xhtml because it's a pain
>> and doesn't work properly anywhere other than in theory :-; A google for
>> "xhtml not working" tells you why.
>>
>> Having said that closing tags is a better idea.
>>   
>
> I don't really care one way or the other about xhtml. I tried closing my 
> tags by turning on sgml-xml-mode. This makes html mode insert a closing 
> </p> tag, which solves my original problem. But it also expects closing 
> tags for other html tags that don't normally use them: link, base, img 
> etc. So in sgml-xml-mode, indentation is screwed up following all of 
> those tags. I can of course manually close my <p> tags, or use C-c /, 
> but there should be a better way. Can I make html-mode close p tags 
> without turning on sgml-xml-mode? I have tried poking around with the 
> tag skeletons, but I find the documentation a little challenging.
>
> As an off-topic aside, is xhtml still moving forward? I thought the W3C 
> had recently decided to ditch it in favor of html 5? Anything I've read 
> suggests that there's no compelling reason to use xhtml for
> webdesign. 

I tried it and regretted a LOT of wasted time and effort. It talked a
good talk but failed the walk. I was somewhat surprised by some replies
there that seemed to suggest xhtml was the working, accepted
standard. It's most certainly not and a LOT of programmers have dropped
it. So I'm with you on that one.

> If that's the case, I'd rather get html-mode configured to support 
> regular html. I'm not really invested in either option, I just want 
> consistent indentation that doesn't require manually tweaking my tags.

I use nxhtml generally, but there are issues I intend to report back to
Lennart. Its pretty slow and there are some nasty indentation issues with
certain mixed files (php and x/html). Having said that I do close tags.

I'm still not sure of the best way to use emacs for this kind of
programming, but nxhtml seems the best of the bunch for me.