RE: [TCLUG:16337] Personal Request...Re: [TCLUG:16324] scavenging laptops

["Eric Hillman" <ehillman@cccu.com>]

> I always thought that HTML's non-indentation of paragraphs (at least in all
> the browsers i've seen) was poor form. I found that one *can* do indenting
> tho, by abusing the <DD> tag. :) (putting it at the beginning of the
> paragraph). that may not be a very good solution, tho. :)
>

I used to think that myself, but I'm inclined to think that perhaps the indented
paragraph is more or less obsolete.  On paper, you indent paragraphs to set
blocks of text apart -- which works swell because you know that any two copies
of the book are going to have the same font & page width.  Plus, inserting a
blank line between paragraphs (the apparent standard for online communication)
wastes a lot of paper over the course of a novel.

Online, obviously, I have little idea what font you're using, how wide your
screen is (it's conceivable that the previous paragraph is one line to some of
you, eight or nine to others), etc.  There's no worry about material waste, and
since I'm writing a brief e-mail (or at least trying to) setting off text blocks
with an empty line seems like an aesthetically pleasant format.

On the other hand, if you *must* set off blocks of HTML some other way, a single
&nbsp; is usually sufficient -- sometimes when I'm feeling excessively artsy,
I'll lead off a paragraph with an oversized initial character.  Either one is
better than a full tab.