Re: NBSP supposed to stretch, right?

[James Kass via Unicode]

Asmus Freytag wrote,

> And any recommendation that is not compatible with what the overwhelming
> majority of software has been doing should be ignored (or only 
enabled on

> explicit user input).
>
> Otherwise, you'll just advocating for a massively breaking change.

It seems like the recommendations are already in place and the 
“overwhelming majority of software” is already disregarding them.


I don’t see the massively breaking change here.  Are there any 
illustrations?


If legacy text containing NON-BREAK SPACE characters is popped into a 
justifier, the worst thing that can happen is that the text will be 
correctly justified under a revised application.  That’s not breaking 
anything, it’s fixing it.  Unlike changing the font-face, font size, or 
page width (which often results in reformatting the text), the line 
breaks are calculated before justification occurs.


If a string of NON-BREAK SPACE characters appears in an HTML file, the 
browser should proportionally adjust all of those space characters 
identically with the “normal” space characters.  This should preserve 
the authorial intent.


As for pre-Unicode usage of NON-BREAK SPACE, were there ever any exlicit 
guidelines suggesting that the normal SPACE character should expand or 
contract for justification but that the NON-BREAK SPACE must not expand 
or contract?

Re: NBSP supposed to stretch, right?

[Asmus Freytag via Unicode]

  
  
On 12/17/2019 11:31 AM, James Kass via
  Unicode wrote:

So it
  follows that any justification operation should treat NO-BREAK
  SPACE and SPACE identically.
And any recommendation that is not
compatible with what the overwhelming majority of software has
been doing should be ignored (or only enabled on explicit user
input).
Otherwise, you'll just advocating for a
massively breaking change.
NBSP has been supported since way before
Unicode. It's way past the point where we can legislate behavior
other than the de-facto consensus among implementations.
Now, if someone can show us that there are
widespread implementations that follow the above recommendation
and have no interoperability issues with HTML then I may change
my tune.
A./

  

Re: NBSP supposed to stretch, right?

[Richard Wordingham via Unicode]

On Tue, 17 Dec 2019 06:20:39 +0530
Shriramana Sharma via Unicode  wrote:

> Hello. I've just tested LibreOffice, Google Docs and MS Office on
> Linux, Android and Windows, and it seems that NBSP doesn't get
> stretched like the normal space character when justified alignment
> requires it.
> 
> Let me explain. I'm creating a document with the following text
> typeset in 12 pt Lohit Tamil with justified alignment on an A5 page
> with 0.5" margin all around:
> 
> ஶ்ரீமத் மஹாபாரதம் என்பது நமது தேசத்தின் பெரும் இதிஹாஸமாகும். இதனை
> இயற்றியவர் ஶ்ரீ வேத வ்யாஸர். அவரால் அனுக்ரஹிக்கப்பட்டவையான நூல்கள் பல.
> 
> The screenshot
> https://sites.google.com/site/jamadagni/files/temp/nbsp-not-expanding.png
> may be useful to illustrate the situation. Readers may try such
> similar sentences in any software/platform of their choice and report
> as to what happens.
> 
> Here the problem arises with the phrase ஶ்ரீ வேத வ்யாஸர். The word
> ஶ்ரீ is a honorific applying to the following name of the sage வேத
> வ்யாஸர், so it would seem unsightly to the reader if it goes to the
> previous line, so I insert an NBSP between it and the name. (Isn't
> there such a stylistic convention in English where Mr doesn't stand at
> the end of a line? I don't know.)

It's not widely taught in so far as it exists.  I would avoid
placingthe word at the end in wide columns, just as I suppress line
breaks in 'Figure 7' and '17 December', but I only apply it to short
adjuncts. However, I would find the use of narrower spacing somewhere
between acceptable and desirable.  Thai has a similar rule, where there
is generally no space between title and forename, but an obligatory
space between forename and surname.  To me, this is a continuation of
the principle that line-breaks within phrases make them more difficult
to understand.

> However, the phrase is shortly followed by a long word
> அனுக்ரஹிக்கப்பட்டவையான, which is too long to fit on the same line and
> hence goes to the next line, thereby increasing the inter-word spacing
> on its previous line significantly. But the NBSP after the honorific
> doesn't stretch, making the word layout unsightly.

The strategies to deal with this general problem in English are
hyphenation and abandoning justification.  In this particular case,
your text would benefit from using Knuth's algorithm for justification.

> IIUC, no-break space is just that: a space that doesn't permit a line
> break. This says nothing about it being fixed width.
> 
> Unicode 12.0 §2.3 on p 27 (55 of PDF) says:

You're assuming that TUS is a standard.  It's much more a collection of
influential recommendations.

Richard.

Re: NBSP supposed to stretch, right?

[James Kass via Unicode]

On 2019-12-17 10:37 AM, QSJN 4 UKR via Unicode wrote:

Agree.
By the way, it is common practice to use multiple nbsp in a row to
create a larger span. In my opinion, it is wrong to replace fixed
width spaces with non-breaking spaces.
Quote from Microsoft Typography Character design standards:
«The no-break space is not the same character as the figure space. The
figure space is not a character defined in most computer system's
current code pages. In some fonts this character's width has been
defined as equal to the figure width. This is an incorrect usage of
the character no-break space.»

The mention of code pages made me suspect that this quote was from an 
archived older web page, but it's current.  Here's the link:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/develop/character-design-standards/whitespace

Quoting from that same page,
"Advance width rule : The advance width of the no-break space should be 
equal to the width of the space."


So it follows that any justification operation should treat NO-BREAK 
SPACE and SPACE identically.

Re: NBSP supposed to stretch, right?

[Asmus Freytag via Unicode]

  
  
On 12/17/2019 2:41 AM, Shriramana
  Sharma via Unicode wrote:


  
  

  
On Tue 17 Dec, 2019, 16:09
  QSJN 4 UKR via Unicode, 
  wrote:

Agree.
  By the way, it is common practice to use multiple nbsp in
  a row to
  create a larger span. In my opinion, it is wrong to
  replace fixed
  width spaces with non-breaking spaces.
  Quote from Microsoft Typography Character design
  standards:
  «The no-break space is not the same character as the
  figure space. The
  figure space is not a character defined in most computer
  system's
  current code pages. In some fonts this character's width
  has been
  defined as equal to the figure width. This is an incorrect
  usage of
  the character no-break space.»

  



Sorry but I don't understand how this addresses
  the issue I raised.
  

You don't?
In principle it may be true that NBSP is not
fixed width, but show me software that doesn't treat it that
way.
In HTML, NBSP isn't subject to space
collapse, therefore it's the go-to space character when you need
some extra spacing that doesn't disappear.
I bet, in many other environments it was
typically the only "other" space character, so it ended up
overloaded.
My hunch is that it is too late at this
point to try to promulgate a "clean" implementation of NBSP,
because it would effectively change untold documents
retroactively. So it would be a massively breaking change.
If you have a situation where you need
really poor layout (wide inter-word spaces) to justify, the fact
that a honorific in front of a name works more like it's part of
the same word (because the NBSP doesn't stretch) would be the
least of my worries. (Although, on lines where interword spaces
are a reduced a bit, I can see that becoming counter-intuitive).
If you only fix this in software for
high-end typography, you'd still have the issue that things will
behave differently if you export your (plain) text. And you
would have the issue of what to do when you want fixed spaces to
be non-breaking as well (is that ever needed?).
A./
  
  

Re: NBSP supposed to stretch, right?

[Shriramana Sharma via Unicode]

On Tue 17 Dec, 2019, 16:09 QSJN 4 UKR via Unicode, 
wrote:

> Agree.
> By the way, it is common practice to use multiple nbsp in a row to
> create a larger span. In my opinion, it is wrong to replace fixed
> width spaces with non-breaking spaces.
> Quote from Microsoft Typography Character design standards:
> «The no-break space is not the same character as the figure space. The
> figure space is not a character defined in most computer system's
> current code pages. In some fonts this character's width has been
> defined as equal to the figure width. This is an incorrect usage of
> the character no-break space.»
>

Sorry but I don't understand how this addresses the issue I raised.

Fwd: NBSP supposed to stretch, right?

[QSJN 4 UKR via Unicode]

Agree.
By the way, it is common practice to use multiple nbsp in a row to
create a larger span. In my opinion, it is wrong to replace fixed
width spaces with non-breaking spaces.
Quote from Microsoft Typography Character design standards:
«The no-break space is not the same character as the figure space. The
figure space is not a character defined in most computer system's
current code pages. In some fonts this character's width has been
defined as equal to the figure width. This is an incorrect usage of
the character no-break space.»