Message editor removes double spaces.

BendiBus

When I was learning to write (& to type), I was taught to put an extra space between a full stop and the first letter of the next sentance. There should be 2 spaces between this sentence and the previous one. And this one. It assists readability.

Sadly this message editor tries to be clever and removes the second space. This upsets me

I guess this is a "feature" of the forum software and, besides, most people can't even spell, so this is a secondary matter. Just wanted to express my view!

Kiera

Oh i see what you mean. I didnt notice this till now.

5starpool

I've never had an issue reading single spaced text.

turgon

Its nothing to do with the forum software, its to do with the way browsers display web pages. If you look at the source code of this page you will see the double spaces between the sentences, however the browser ignores anything more than one space.

This is because spaces tend to crop up here and there in HTML code and if these were all rendered it would be a lot harder to code.

sceptre

HTML standards specify that extra white space is ignored unless you take steps to ensure that the extra white space appears.

What you're looking to do (what used to be called English spacing - two spaces after each sentence - and is often now called French spacing, even though French spacing is actually the opposite (one space after each sentence)) has been enforced since the early days of typewriters in many places as the old universal view was that two spcaes considerably aided readability. Views began to change as soon as proportionately spaced typefaces became possible and popular, like the one you're almost certainly reading this webpage in at the moment. Monospace typefaces, where all letters are exactly the same width (like Courier New or any of the other typewriter style typefaces) certainly look better with a double space but opinion's divided on the proportionately sized typefaces, where wider letters take up more space and the gap between some letters (like a t followed by a w) is altered to make them easier to read.

Jury's out on what looks better since we got computers and laser printers but most commercial publishers and most newspaper style sheets now specify single space. When I was editing my college newspaper I debated which to use and eventually went for single space as I liked the look a lot better, especially with text in columns.

Can't blame either vbulletin or boards for this one I'm afraid. Web standard.

Steve

sceptre wrote: »

Can't blame either vbulletin or boards for this one I'm afraid. Web standard.

Does VB not parse out contiguous multiple space characters then? I thought it did.

Terry

Make your own browser, with blackjack and hookers.

Actually, forget the blackjack and hookers.

Make your own browser with double spaces.
There are plenty of open source browsers out there.

sceptre

SteveC wrote: »

Does VB not parse out contiguous multiple space characters then? I thought it did.

I'm not sure - it might do but if it does it's just obeying the original standard that all white space is treated the same (one space equals one space, 1000 spaces equal one space) unless it's within a pre tag. There are lots of tricks to overcome that of course (including your noparse one, I laughed before you deleted the post) but that's the html standard as laid out.

I've got to say that I rather like that standard. For example, I actively dislike it when paragraphs are indented for the first line and the standard removes that as s possibility without a juggling act of code. I actually really like it that paragraphs all start at the same vertical point and a new paragraph requires a double carriage return. In typing, that's far easier to read. When writing, I often tend to do the same thing.

javaboy

turgon wrote: »

Its nothing to do with the forum software, its to do with the way browsers display web pages. If you look at the source code of this page you will see the double spaces between the sentences, however the browser ignores anything more than one space.

This is because spaces tend to crop up here and there in HTML code and if these were all rendered it would be a lot harder to code.

Nope it looks like VB is filtering out the whitespace as unnecessary. There's no point in storing useless data on the server so it's dropped.

sceptre

javaboy wrote: »

Nope it looks like VB is filtering out the whitespace as unnecessary. There's no point in storing useless data on the server so it's dropped.

Looking at the page source, seems that turgon is right as far as I can see. Still following the web standards obviously but the render is removing the extra spaces in the original by BendiBus, for example - double spacing present in the source and stored in the database (as it was included in the original post) but not rendered on the page.

javaboy

sceptre wrote: »

Looking at the page source, seems that turgon is right as far as I can see. Still following the web standards obviously but the render is removing the extra spaces in the original by BendiBus, for example - double spacing present in the source and stored in the database (as it was included in the original post) but not rendered on the page.

Whoops. I mistakenly thought Turgon had included double whitespaces in his own post to demonstrate. I never thought to check the OP.

Nothing to see here. /whistles and walks away in shame

Steve

I agree, it appears that the browser itself is removing the spaces.

<!-- message -->
        <div id="post_message_58655766">
            
            When I was learning to write (&amp; to type), I was taught to put an extra space between a full stop and the first letter of the next sentance.  There should be 2 spaces between this sentence and the previous one.  And this one.  It assists readability.<br />
<br />
Sadly this message editor tries to be clever and removes the second space.  This upsets me <img src="http://static.boards.ie/vbulletin/images/smilies/frown.gif" border="0" alt="" title="Frown" class="inlineimg" />  <br />
<br />
I guess this is a &quot;feature&quot; of the forum software and, besides, most people can't even spell, so this is a secondary matter.  Just wanted to express my view!
        </div>
        <!-- / message -->

AlmightyCushion

javaboy wrote: »

There's no point in storing useless data on the server so it's dropped.

If that was the case after hours wouldn't be here.

Xiney

I was 8 when I learned how to type. My mom and dad taught me. Both of them learned on typewriters, so I was taught to put two spaces after every period.

I've known for a long time that it's not standard anymore, but it still bothers me a little. I do like the look of the double space. It helps me to separate each sentence as an idea in my mind.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

I give my wimmins a lot of spaces after periods too...

Steve

Xiney wrote: »

I was 8 when I learned how to type. My mom and dad taught me. Both of them learned on typewriters, so I was taught to put two spaces after every period.

I've known for a long time that it's not standard anymore, but it still bothers me a little. I do like the look of the double space. It helps me to separate each sentence as an idea in my mind.

Interesting to note that the emailed notification of your post was double spaced.

It's how I was taught as well btw.

I don't think it's a case of not being standard any more, more that the (probably American) authors of web browsers have implemented a html rule to the detriment of proper grammar/formatting/whatever.

sceptre

SteveC wrote: »

I don't think it's a case of not being standard any more, more that the (probably American) authors of web browsers have implemented a html rule to the detriment of proper grammar/formatting/whatever.

Ah, you're right I think (and for the OP, any time I used the word "standard", I definitely mean "rule as imposed and followed" rather than what we're supposed to do). Originally, it would have been for the convenience of programmers, not readers (almost all programming languages except for Python ignore multiple white space when parsing). SGML doesn't have such a restriction but HTML/XML do, purely to make it easier for people who are used to programming real cose.

It'd be a single line of code (xml:space="preserve") to be added to the parser to change display of posts so that double spacing (or any other form of spacing) is displayed but personally, I like it the way it is. It also keeps the little tykes in check who'd space their posts all over the place just to be funny in a peculiar way.

javaboy

sceptre wrote: »

It also keeps the little tykes in check who'd space their posts all over the place just to be funny in a peculiar way.

Yeah I love it when you see this kind of thing:
_ _,---._
,-',' `-.___
/-;' `._
/\/ ._ _,'o \
( /\ _,--'\,','"`. )
|\ ,'o \' //\
| \ / ,--'""`-.
: \_ _/ ,-' `-._
\ `--' / )
`. \`._ ,' ________,','
.--` ,' ,--` __\___,;'
\`.,-- ,' ,`_)--' /`.,'
\( ; | | ) (`-/
`--'| |) |-/
| | | | |
| | |,.,-. | |_
| `./ / )---` )
_| / ,', ,-'
,'|_( /-<._,' |--,
| `--'---. \/ \
| / \ /\ \
,-^---._ | \ / \ \
,-' \----' \/ \--`.
/ \ \ \

Steve

javaboy wrote: »

Yeah I love it when you see this kind of thing:
_ _,---._
,-',' `-.___
/-;' `._
/\/ ._ _,'o \
( /\ _,--'\,','"`. )
|\ ,'o \' //\
| \ / ,--'""`-.
: \_ _/ ,-' `-._
\ `--' / )
`. \`._ ,' ________,','
.--` ,' ,--` __\___,;'
\`.,-- ,' ,`_)--' /`.,'
\( ; | | ) (`-/
`--'| |) |-/
| | | | |
| | |,.,-. | |_
| `./ / )---` )
_| / ,', ,-'
,'|_( /-<._,' |--,
| `--'---. \/ \
| / \ /\ \
,-^---._ | \ / \ \
,-' \----' \/ \--`.
/ \ \ \

It looked good in the email...:D
Looks like a motorway pile-up here though.

Steve

ftr, this is what it's supposed to look like.

       _ _,---._
       ,-','       `-.___
      /-;'               `._
     /\/          ._   _,'o \
    ( /\       _,--'\,','"`. )
     |\      ,'o     \'    //\
     |      \        /   ,--'""`-.
     :       \_    _/ ,-'         `-._
      \        `--'  /                )
       `.  \`._    ,'     ________,','
         .--`     ,'  ,--` __\___,;'
          \`.,-- ,' ,`_)--'  /`.,'
           \( ;  | | )      (`-/
             `--'| |)       |-/
               | | |        | |
               | | |,.,-.   | |_
               | `./ /   )---`  )
              _|  /    ,',   ,-'
             ,'|_(    /-<._,' |--,
             |    `--'---.     \/ \
             |          / \    /\  \
           ,-^---._     |  \  /  \  \
        ,-'        \----'   \/    \--`.
       /            \              \   \

seamus

Yep, use the {code} tags if you require additional spacing. As sceptre points out, this is absolutely nothing to do with vBulletin or boards. It's a web standard which has both annoyed and helped web developers for 15 years.

For those who are interested, one of the main reasons why extra whitespace is ignored, is to aid the readability of the source HTML on a page. Here's a sample of source code for boards:

tr>
	<td class="alt1" width="100%">
		
			<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
			<tr valign="bottom">
				<td><a href="#" onclick="history.back(1); return false;"><img src="http://static.boards.ie/vbulletin/images/custom/cloud/misc/navbits_start.gif" alt="Go Back" border="0" /></a></td>
				<td>&nbsp;</td>

				<td width="100%"><span class="navbar"><a href="index.php" accesskey="1">boards.ie</a></span> 
	<span class="navbar">&gt; <a href="forumdisplay.php?f=81">Sys</a></span>


	<span class="navbar">&gt; <a href="forumdisplay.php?f=82">Feedback</a></span>

</td>
			</tr>
			<tr>

See all that whitespace? If that was displayed by the browser, the layout would be all over the shop. You can get tools which strip out whitespace, but that turns everything into an incomprehensible mush, making life a nightmare if you need to make changes to the code. There are ways of explicitly saying, "Show some whitespace here", such as the code   (non-breaking space). But vBulletin escapes these out afaik.

Dades

Double spacing.ftw.