The only preference now is to use Mozilla 1.3 final or later
simply looking at source and then closing inserts <br> each time you do it in Netscape 7.x
I'm using 1.3 final and I still get the annoying <BR>'s.
I've got an editor extension under development that strips the extra BR's out, but it's a special purpose kinda thing. Maybe I should make a more generalized version of it!
