[Mozile] White space handling

[leif halvard silli]

I think that shift+space makes nbsp, is a great suggestion of Josef. I 
agree with him that that is a degree of knowledege about how mozile 
works, that one should be able to demand.  Also, it can be considered a 
feature in the spirit of «What-You-See-Is-What-You-Mean» (but also it is 
what you Get;)). And we all want to be 'semantic' these days.

And was for the relationship to Word-processors: if you know _something_ 
about how to use a wordprocesser, then you know that nonbreaking space 
and regular space isn't the same thing. They are in fact inserted with 
different keys. (On the Mac, with Norwegian keyboard at least, one use 
alt + space.) And btw, why use nbsp, why not type the NO BREAK SPACE 
(Unicode name) directly?

WHite space handeling should else be decided in the style sheet (or 
<pre> tags). Thus it would make sence to decide have two (or more) white 
space modes. One mode for newbies, for instance, where multiple hits on 
the space key will result in <span style="white-space:pre;>.....</span>. 
THese elements could esily be styled to have normal white space 
handeling, after the page is saved. (To avoid layout disasters, as Josef 
mentioned.)

In a «pro» mode hitting space multiple times could result in a  warning: 
«please use  shift +  space to insert  no break space.»

A third option could be to make it so that, while editing, all tags use 
style="white-space:pre;. As long as that doesn't prevent the insertion 
of new <p>tags with the line return key ...

James A. Overton wrote:
>     The key drawback is that it isn't intuitive to a first-time user. 
> You expect a word-processor to insert and display a space each time 
> you press the space bar. On the other hand, XML collapses white space.
>     I think there has to be a mode which will insert white space in a 
> way which works like a word processor. IE already does this, but 
> Mozilla will have to be made to do it.

Leif