Line Spacing

[Marcher Technologies]

Umm, for reference, I use this community site more than any other IPB. I would hopefully like to be able to post bug reports from mobile without fighting the interface for control of the text is the only reason I posted here. Altering the CSS for a given skin is child's play, but it helps not the issue i end up facing posting from mobile here.

[wimg]

Sorry, that is not a valid argument. You claim that it “worked” before and now needs to be “changed” to work again. This is simply not true. You can’t just claim that your taste in regards to paragraph spacing is the one that “works” and other possibilities do not work. Again: line-spacing is a styling setting. Nothing else. On my 4.0 site I have even increased the space well over the default settings used here.

 

I have no idea who WP and MS are. But I am not “following” anyone. I am a professional graphic designer who designs websites and books for a living and who has even written books about typesetting. Its my profession to know how these things work and how they should be done – in a technical sense and in terms of design and legibility. And from that point of view, there is nothing wrong with automatically separating paragraphs through any means – may it be indents or margins.

​It worked before for me and my members and visitors, more or less. It does have to be changed in order for it to keep on working as before. If you like to increase spacing, or use any other styling, to each their own taste. That's fine. Ideally I would like it to work like a proper document editor, so everybody can do what they like to do. I don't necessarily want to edit any css file to achieve this, even though I will.

WP = WordPress, MS = Microsoft. Considering your member id and your comments it was quite clear you are into typesetting and related stuff. Good for you that you know how these things work. How things should be done is a matter of taste, however. The same is true for all the legibility and user friendliness stuff. It depends on the group culture to a large degree. So, in a technical sense, fine, you're the expert. In terms of design and legibility: that entirely depends on the group or client you are working for. This is mostly a matter of taste, and how it is perceived by the group or client. Everybody perceives things differently. And in addition there also appears to be something like fashion, and this is what we are up against currently, IMO. Nothing wrong with fashion, but that doesn't mean that all that comes from fashion is good. That was the point regarding WordPress and Microsoft.

I never said there is anything wrong with automatically separating paragraphs. However, I have a problem with someone determining on my behalf what a paragraph is. I may want to start a new line in the same paragraph, without starting a new paragraph. I know now, thanks to this topic, that I need to do Shift-Enter to do so. However, my question will still be why. Why make it more difficult for a user who doesn't know about these things? Why make it hard on a mobile user? This was what it was all about in the first place.

Regards, Wim

 

[wimg]

Umm, for reference, I use this community site more than any other IPB. I would hopefully like to be able to post bug reports from mobile without fighting the interface for control of the text is the only reason I posted here. Altering the CSS for a given skin is child's play, but it helps not the issue i end up facing posting from mobile here.

​Very true. But altering the css will make your experience slightly better, at least from a scrolling POV ;).

Warm regards, Wim

[wimg]

Since when does hitting "enter" mean new paragraph? That's news to me. I am pretty sure it is now and has always meant, break to a new line. I think that is where the complications are. Nobody here has a problem with spacing for a new paragraph. We also don't have a problem with professional styling for text. What we have a problem with is not being able to use enter for simple line breaks.

​Yep. Enter always used to be CR-LF - Carriage Return, Line Feed. A new line IOW. Not a new paragraph. And I always hated it in modern word processors that they assumed a new paragraph, and even started treating it differently a few years ago, to the point now where we are forced to have more space between paragraphs, and have line heights of more than 1 line as a default.

Fortunately, settings (styles) in word processors can be changed easily. However, look at some of the emails one receives, or ones from oneself received by others. All kinds of interpretation tricks are applied, generally resulting in a few lines with a lot of space in between, not at all like the original. A fashion trend we do not need, IMO.

Warm regards, Wim

[opentype]

Since when does hitting "enter" mean new paragraph? That's news to me.

​No problem. Then you learned something today. 

When you hit enter or return in any “typesetting environment” you create a new paragraph. Just look at the source code of these posts. They will look like this:

<p>Some text before hitting return</p>
<p>Text after hitting return</p>

That p stands for paragraph. It’s this way when a graphic designer designs a book, or when someone uses Microsoft Word, and luckily now also online text editors adopt this proper markup.  

[SJ77]

LOL I know what an HTML <p> tag is.

What I don't know is why the action assigned to hitting enter is to wrap our text in paragraph tags. I think hitting enter should cause <br>

[Cyrem]

Tools that work exactly as users expect them to work.

​The extra line space is exactly the way I expect it to work.

---
@wimg
It seems multiple people here are confused as to what you are actually asking for and saying because you're not making yourself clear and you're talking about multiple things and talking about them as if they are the same thing, they are not. You are mashing Structure, Styling and Interaction together, these are 3 separate things and it would be good if you could isolate what you are actually having a problem with.

There is difficulty associated with creating a line break inside the editor on a mobile or tablet device (This is what Marcher is talking about), I don't think anyone here denied this. This problem shared between WYSIWYG editors and how the OS handles input (I personally have no issues doing this on iPad myself but other people do), it's definitely NOT the fault of IPS and is prevalent on nearly all sites using an up-to-date WYSIWYG editor.

I would advise you to use the facebook editor on a mobile browser if you haven't, there are glorious surprises awaiting you when you play with the ENTER button.

superj707, its now pretty much the new standard for WYSIWYG editors. If you're going to argue with that, please go make a petition against the world or something.

[opentype]

I think hitting enter should cause <br>

​No, it should definitely not.
Because then you have no proper markup and you have no way to style that markup properly. Your post would just be like a typewriter text. It’s possible, but it’s archaic and full of problems. You are mixing content, structure and styling and that is bad and not necessary anymore. We can do better than typewriters in 2015. 

[SJ77]

@Cyrem

​The extra line space is exactly the way I expect it to work.

fair enough, I can't argue with that. 

However to address the rest of your post: I am not sure how I can possibly be confusing. I am not arguing about styling or any of that. I am only taking issue with what hitting enter should do. As it is now, it feels foreign to me.

Let me just say this. I use MS at work and WP frequently. I personally haven't seen any enter button that makes a big space like this does when hitting it. When I first used the editor here it immediately felt odd and broken. When hitting enter I expect to break to a new line not jump down a couple of lines. I've never in my life even considered that hitting enter would ever do a double space.  Actually to be honest I am shocked that so many are in favor of this behavior for the enter button as I can't see any real benefit yet we've all agreed on the negatives. I'll live either way. Hope that clears it up some.

[Cyrem]

 

However to address the rest of your post: I am not sure how I can possibly be confusing. I am not arguing about styling or any of that. I am only taking issue with what hitting enter should do. As it is now, it feels foreign to me.

​Sorry I should have better directed who I was talking to, the rest was to wimg, not you.

 

yet we've all agreed on the negatives

There is only 1 legit negative I see here, and that's a problem between mobile OS's and the editors can sometimes freakout. But this isn't new and will most likely be solved with time. It didn't start with IPS.

[SJ77]

​No, it should definitely not.Because then you have no proper markup and you have no way to style that markup properly. Your post would just be like a typewriter text. It’s possible, but it’s archaic and full of problems. You are mixing content, structure and styling and that is bad and not necessary anymore. We can do better than typewriters in 2015. 

​BAM!! everyone happy, problem solved

<span>some text that will break naturally when hitting enter</span><br>
<span>some other text that can be styled and will be on a new line</span>
 

[SJ77]

​Sorry I should have better directed who I was talking to, the rest was to wimg, not you.

​no worries.. thanks

[Cyrem]

​BAM!! everyone happy, problem solved

<span>some text that will break naturally when hitting enter</span><br>
<span>some other text that can be styled and will be on a new line</span>
 

​Pls no. You're making everyone cry. It's best you never say the above out loud, you'll be swiftly stomped on.

If we keep going we'll only be using DIV, then no markup.... and we'll basically use typewriters again.

[SJ77]

yeah, well the point is I don't see the need to wrap each line in a <p> tag. So if you must wrap every line choose something that doesn't make it behave strangely.
Why not just wrap the whole block of text if the need to style is so important?

Here is a post from SMF

<div class="post">

    <div id="msg_271473" class="inner">

        My job doesn't provide much exposure to those kind of moments, 

        <br></br>
        <br></br>

        Fun fact: I used to live in a neighboring suburb t…

    </div>

</div>

 

the class "inner" would allow any needed styling.
new paragraph is handled with a double break
Still haven't heard the benefit of the current method here, only the negative
As a side note, I repeatedly have to go back and edit my posts because of all the unwanted space. It looks ugly.

[Cemmos]

That's semantically incorrect. The web should improve every year, not go backwards. You can't put any block elements inside of <span>.

EDIT: That was meant for the post before your last. The above is also straying from semantics.

[Cyrem]

 

Here is a post from SMF

​Wait, thats the code from SMF?

wow.

We've moved on from the early 00's.... SMF hasn't.

yeah, well the point is I don't see the need to wrap each line in a <p> tag.

​Except that isn't happening. Each paragraph of text is wrapped in <p> tags.
 

[wimg]

​The extra line space is exactly the way I expect it to work.

---
@wimg
It seems multiple people here are confused as to what you are actually asking for and saying because you're not making yourself clear and you're talking about multiple things and talking about them as if they are the same thing, they are not. You are mashing Structure, Styling and Interaction together, these are 3 separate things and it would be good if you could isolate what you are actually having a problem with.

There is difficulty associated with creating a line break inside the editor on a mobile or tablet device (This is what Marcher is talking about), I don't think anyone here denied this. This problem shared between WYSIWYG editors and how the OS handles input (I personally have no issues doing this on iPad myself but other people do), it's definitely NOT the fault of IPS and is prevalent on nearly all sites using an up-to-date WYSIWYG editor.

I would advise you to use the facebook editor on a mobile browser if you haven't, there are glorious surprises awaiting you when you play with the ENTER button.

superj707, its now pretty much the new standard for WYSIWYG editors. If you're going to argue with that, please go make a petition against the world or something.

​To me it is the end result that counts, not how we get there, and I certainly am not a typesetting, structure, styling or interaction specialist, even though I have done some interesting development stuff years ago. This makes communication difficult indeed, apart from the fact that I am not a native English speaker, meaning, I do not necessarily catch all the nuances intended.

What I am having a problem with, quite simply, is three-fold based on the discussion here.

1) Styling. Can be fixed, be it not necessarily in a way I like, via css. This is the line spacing and line height problem I am encountering.

2) Problems with the use of mobile devices. These partly depend on 1), as the current style settings make it a lot worse for mobile device users than they do for laptop and PC users, and partly on other issues, which we were told a few years ago now, that those would be fixed with ICS 4. I do hope they still will be fixed very soon.

3) Interaction: hitting <ENTER> causes a new paragraph to be created. I want control over when a paragraph is created. Partly solved by the Shift-Enter option. Why partly? Because it is not natural, not even from a hierarchical POV. Adding a line should not require a multiple key-press. Creating a paragraph is hierarchically up in the structure, so that could maybe be done with a multiple key-press, not the other way around. It is just not logical, even though it appears to have become a standard in many applications and editors.

Just my 2c.

Kind regards, Wim

[SJ77]

hahahha I just realized  hitting enter isn't doing what opentype thinks its doing anyway.
Here is the post you just made

<p>
​Wait, thats the code from SMF?
<br>
<br>
wow.
<br>
<br>
I'll never recommend anyone use SMF to anyone. We've moved on from the early 00's....
</p>

Looks like we are back to typewriter days after all. It's just double breaking with each single push of enter button. That's weird.

[opentype]

 

<div class="post">

    <div id="msg_271473" class="inner">

        My job doesn't provide much exposure to those kind of moments, 

        <br></br>
        <br></br>

        Fun fact: I used to live in a neighboring suburb t…

    </div>

</div>

​

Wow, it hurts to look at that. 

[SJ77]

​

Wow, it hurts to look at that. 

​please elaborate. I am honestly interested.

[wimg]

hahahha I just realized  hitting enter isn't doing what opentype thinks its doing anyway.
Here is the post you just made

<p>
​Wait, thats the code from SMF?
<br>
<br>
wow.
<br>
<br>
I'll never recommend anyone use SMF to anyone. We've moved on from the early 00's....
</p>

Looks like we are back to typewriter days after all. It's just double breaking with each single push of enter button. That's weird.

​That actually really serves to make my point <ROFL>.

According to everything said here, it should have been a couple of paragraphs <ROFL>. No one with breaks embedded.

Warm regards, Wim

[Cyrem]

​That actually really serves to make my point <ROFL>.

Warm regards, Wim

Oh dear,

Sorry guys, this clearly demonstration you're both swimming in waters too deep for you both to be in and don't realize it yet.

We're not holding teaching courses here for HTML & semantics.

If this seems rude, sorry but I'm pulling out because it's becoming a waste of time explaining things that are taught elsewhere.

[opentype]

It is just not logical, even though it appears to have become a standard in many applications and editors.

​Please explain your logic then – but don’t base your logic on what you are used to from a typewriter. That’s a habit, not logic. As I have said before: the concept of a paragraph was established hundreds of years ago and it is logical and useful today as it was 300 years ago. It’s the typewriter who broke that logic because of purely technical restrictions of the machine itself. 

[Marcher Technologies]

hahahha I just realized  hitting enter isn't doing what opentype thinks its doing anyway.
Here is the post you just made

<p>
​Wait, thats the code from SMF?
<br>
<br>
wow.
<br>
<br>
I'll never recommend anyone use SMF to anyone. We've moved on from the early 00's....
</p>

Looks like we are back to typewriter days after all. It's just double breaking with each single push of enter button. That's weird.

​That was him manually using shift+enter. I would not be so quick to laugh at others based upon assumptions.

​please elaborate. I am honestly interested.

​<br></br> is not valid HTML, at least in the HTML4 and HTML5 specifications.....

[SJ77]

​Please explain your logic then – but don’t base your logic on what you are used to from a typewriter. That’s a habit, not logic. As I have said before: the concept of a paragraph was established hundreds of years ago and it is logical and useful today as it was 300 years ago. It’s the typewriter who broke that logic because of purely technical restrictions of the machine itself. 

​I appreciate how well thought out this post is. It's great that you're not just slinging mud here but actually making a case for yourself. nice post!