Conference vaxuum::document_ft

I remember the discussion about this awhile back; I probably even had a 
few comments!  I found some ways (that I won't describe here) to work 
around the problem of lists in tables, but gee, wouldn't it be nice if 
it were done for me!

Rather than a <no_space> tag, I would rather see the preskip for lists 
handled correctly in the context in which they are used.  My reasoning 
is that the <line> tag is already available for those (what I believe
would be unusual cases) where a preskip was desired in tables and 
command templates.  

I like the philosophy behind DOCUMENT freeing the writer of formatting 
concerns.  It's been hard to do that across the board (even I am guilty 
of having asked for some formatter-type things); but there are 
some good strides towards the free-of-format-concerns direction, so I'd 
rather not see yet another tag that formats.

My opinion only, of course.


Rose

    
    I would opt for making the text formatter smarter about knowing
    when an element is the first element in a particular context and
    to therefore suppress space. Not for V1.0, of course, but I have
    been thinking about it. Note that a great many problems that users
    have stems from not placing <p> tags correctly following <headn>
    tags; this is in fact one place where we apply a rule about spacing
    preceding an element having no space or less spacing than usual.
    
    -pa

    Wait a minute! I thought that <p> tags label the things that comes
    after them. I keep seeing the idea that a <p> tag should always
    come after a heading (or at least this is implied). Is this a new
    rule? If so, then putting the <p> tag after the heading (before
    a list) would solve the problem in .0.
    
    My feeling is that the context sensitivity regarding vertical skips
    is very important--I would have expected it to appear in V1. Can't
    the 'list' macro be given some more smarts?
    
    Sorry if I sound pushy, but it's frustrating when DOCUMENT doesn't
    best DSR in something like this.
    
    Marty
    
    

Hmmm, I think something went amiss here (re: .3).  The problem stated in 
.0 is that list automatically puts a skip before its first list element. 
 In many cases, this is good because many lists are preceded by a 
paragraph.  But use list in a table and everything usually gets 
misaligned because lists in tables are usually not preceded by 
paragraphs.  The following illustrates what happens with a list in a 
table; notice that "Refrigerator" starts a line further down than 
Kitchen Appliances, instead of on the same line as it should.


       Kitchen Appliances      
                                 Refrigerator
                                 Garbage Compactor
                                 Dishwasher


The rule about a <p> tag always following a header is, I believe, based 
on the usually correct assumption that headers are followed by 
paragraphs (good toilet training at work here), even if the sole purpose
of that paragraph is to introduce a list.  It's not a new rule, meaning
it's been true since at least BL6 when I first started using DOCUMENT. 

As for the behavior of <list> in a command template, I can't comment 
because I haven't tried it; but I had the impression it was similar to 
the behavior of list in a table.

Somehow I get the feeling that we are all in violent agreement....


Rose

    Headers are not always followed by paragraphs--whether or not it
    is correct to have a list after a header is not the place for DOCUMENT
    to decide.
    
    <P> tags should tag paragraphs, and should be thought of by the
    user as independent of anything else. The doctype can worry about
    context.
    
    My opinion.
    
    Marty

    
    sorry if I misstated the rule, Marty. I should have said "the
    next element following a head must be tagged, even if it is a <p>,
    as should all elements."
                                 -pa