Re: Suggestion: use CSS to detect when spaces should be preserved

Hussein Shafie wrote:
> Eric van der Vlist wrote:
> 
>> Currently, XEE relies on the xml:space attribute (usually defaulted in a
>> DTD or schema) to detect when spaces need to be preserved. This info is
>> also available in the CSS stylesheet (white-space attribute) and I think
>> that in most cases, that's easier for a "power user" to fiddle the CSS
>> than the DTD.
>>
>> Why not use the information of the CSS stylesheet (when available) and
>> not normalize spaces when white-space is set to "pre"?
> 
> 
> Your suggestion cannot be easily implemented given the architecture of XXE.

Probably because CSSs are used at browse/edit time, and not at load/save 
time. Editing formatted text requires no only 'whitespace: pre' in CSS, 
but also to preserve newlines at load/save. Otherwise the formatting 
will be lost between editing sessions.

On other hand, the 'whitespace: pre' option could (should?) be used to 
handle the 'return' key. In this case it could behave like inside XML 
comments: it simply inserts a newline. Otherwise it could maintain its 
actual behaviour: split the element at the caret position.

> 
> However you are right in saying that XXE could have a method other than 
> xml:space="preserve" to specify that spaces need to be preserved for 
> some elements.