Joe,
I'm unsure what the _intended_ function of the DIV tag is supposed to be,
other than dividing the document. Basically, I think of it as being like the
paragraph tag P without the extra linespace which the P tag adds after a
paragraph. When one converts an html email to plaintext, the Ps extra
linespace is lost, and paragraphs which had looked separate end up looking like
one paragraph. Text formatted with DIV tags tends to behave better when
undergoing changes. Also, DIV is block-level element like P and this means
certain things when you add STYLE formattting to the tag. The designed behavior
of the P tag was not a bad idea, and was in line with the basic ideas
involved in html -- the P tag is in order to tell the user's program what ARE
the paragraphs of TEXT. But programs were designed which somtimes mess the
appearance up when the text mode is changed (changed by converting from html to
plaintext, or in making a reply, or in copying and pasting into plaintext,
etc.).
The BR tag corresponds to the MS Word line break which you get by pressing
SHIFT ENTER. My experience is that these BR's sometimes get lost in conversion.
I've seen it especially in responses to my emails in past years. So I developed
a habit of avoiding them unless I knew that I wouldn't really mind if they got
omitted at some point. If you see text in a response in which, in the course of
every one or two lines, two words run together, then it may well be because the
program didn't save the BR tags in converting the text from one mode to
another. Some of these email programs do all kinds of wierd things, like add
I should take the opportunity to note that the 20s equality signs which the
Lyris server adds to the html source are seen only at the Lyris archives, and
not in the posts actually distributed (at least not in the ones which I
receive).
Best, Ben
What is the functional difference between using the DIV and the BR tag,
Ben? You say that it makes some sort of difference in email but I don't
understand what you mean.
Joe
- Original Message -
From: Benjamin Udell [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu
Sent: Monday, May 29, 2006 3:41 PM
Subject: [peirce-l] Graphics in posts
List,
I've been considering Richard Hake's complaints about html, graphics, etc., in
messages. Believe it or not, I have some sympathy for his views (otherwise I
wouldn't clean up my html markup or strive to make images be as low-KB as I can
with my amateur means). This sympathy developed and hardened in the course of
work experience some years ago at a corporation whose internal branding
requirements during the middle part of my time there were dreamt up by some
PC-semiliterate folks quite separately from awareness about kilobytes, server
capacity, and mass-pho'py stickiness. I've also noticed that the Lyris server
adds some sort of coding, with a lot of 20s equality signs, which makes my
html messages harder to read in the message source as some people try to do. So
I'm willling to take a few ameliorative steps.
I am very glad that Joe maintains a policy of allowing html images etc., but,
since I've seemed to be the most frequent user of the graphic capabilities, I'm
willing to send a plaintext version to those who prefer it, with links to the
graphics which I'll put at some free image-hosting service like imageshack.us
or Flickr. I do not believe that listers generally should be required to do
this, but again, I'm currently the lister making the most frequent use of
graphic capabilities and I happen to find it easy to take the described
measures. I'll use html only when I'm including tables or other graphics. So
when you see html from me, you'll know that you can just delete it because I'm
sending you a plaintext version if--if--if you've let me know (off-list) that
that's what you prefer. Those who already simply delete any message at all from
me don't need to change their behavior at all, of course, and they, too, have
at least some of my sympathy! Actually, I don't expect to hear from anybody
about this, but I could be wrong, so I thought that I should at least offer.
It is already the case that my html posts to peirce-l can be converted to
plaintext without loss of info as to italicization, etc., and I generally
arrange it so that the paragraphs are separated into email divisions (with
the DIV tags) rather than using the simple breaks (with the BR tags)
which some modes (I forget which) of plaintext conversion lose. I do recommend
that any respondents delete whatever is unneeded in the response, including my
graphics if they're irrelevant. I don't know how every email program works, but
in the Microsoft ones, you can convert to plaintext by clicking on Format,
Plain Text. MS Outlook Express automatically deletes images in the textbody in
conversion to plain text; some other email programs seem to allow incorporation
of images in the
