Subject: Re: LineBreaks vs Page/ColBreaks
From: Jesper Skov (jskov@redhat.com)
Date: Sat May 27 2000 - 09:22:46 CDT
>>>>> "Martin" == Martin Sevior <msevior@mccubbin.ph.unimelb.edu.au> writes:
>> That's not the case, however, and I wonder if that's by conscious
>> design or JustTheWayItHappensToBe(TM). When inserting a linebreak,
>> a new block is created for the following line. It seems natural (to
>> my twisted mind, anyway) to have the same happen for columnbreaks
>> and pagebreaks, but these just appear as runs inside the original
>> block.
>>
>>
Martin> I ran into this when I was trying to fix Luke Jordan's Lists
Martin> patch. (I gave up and decided to leave it until Fields gets
Martin> fixed). A new line gets a new Block. I assumed that a block
Martin> was actually a paragraph. Hmm now I think about it a paragraph
Martin> can span a pagebreak or a column break. That might be the
Martin> answer. A block is a paragraph. A paragraph can span a
Martin> pagebreak or column break. It would be good if one of the
Martin> designers of abi could provide some clues however (hint) :-)
Yes, I see. And I've implemented some code to deal with this.
Still, I don't quite understand why a paragraph should be able to span
a page/column break. Looking at the internal data structures, a
pagebreak only appears when inserted - not when a paragraph spills
over the page limit. So as I see it, page breaks don't differ much
from line breaks in what they do - but they are treated differently in
the code.
Now, I can't claim to much of a WP user, so I don't know if there is
any reason to treat them differently. Presumably, from the user's
perspective, a line break and a page break are the same type of things
- basically alignment operators, one aligning to the next line, the
other to the next page. (same for column breaks). I remain unconvinced
that these should cause such dramatic differences in the internal
representation.
It would indeed be nice with an explanation from someone who sits up
there (at 20k feet, with a nice overview :)
Jesper
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