Closing paragraph tag required?

[AndyZa]

Is the following html valid?

<p><hr width="50%"></p>

Or would the following be more "technicall y correct"?

<p>
<hr width="50%">

Do I require the closing </p> tag?

[Benjamin Niemann]

Re: Closing paragraph tag required?

AndyZa wrote:
[color=blue]
> Is the following html valid?
>
> <p><hr width="50%"></p>[/color]

No.
[color=blue]
> Or would the following be more "technicall y correct"?
>
> <p>
> <hr width="50%">[/color]

Yes.
[color=blue]
> Do I require the closing </p> tag?[/color]

No. The first example is equivalent to

<p></p><hr width="50%"></p>

which is obviously invalid, the second one is equivalent to

<p>
</p><hr width="50%">

which is valid.

The end tag for P is optional. HR is a block level element which is not
allowed as a child of P. But a parser will not complain about this, because
</p> is optional and the P element is implicitly closed.

--
Benjamin Niemann
Email: pink at odahoda dot de
WWW: http://pink.odahoda.de/

[Lars Eighner]

Re: Closing paragraph tag required?

In our last episode,
<1147953623.103 159.70390@g10g2 000cwb.googlegr oups.com>,
the lovely and talented AndyZa
broadcast on comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html:
[color=blue]
> Is the following html valid?[/color]
[color=blue]
><p><hr width="50%"></p>[/color]

No. P cannot contain HR. The P element is closed when the HR is
encountered.
[color=blue]
> Or would the following be more "technicall y correct"?[/color]
[color=blue]
><p>
><hr width="50%">[/color]

No. There is nothing in P. P means "this is a paragraph," not "make some
space."
[color=blue]
> Do I require the closing </p> tag?[/color]

In HTML 4x, the closing tag for P is optional. Your problem is that you
appearently have not understood what HTML is all about. If you have a
paragraph, mark it up with P. You seem to think P means something like:
"skip a line here," which it doesn't. If I have misunderstood your
intentions, please explain what sort document structure you are trying to
represent when you attempt to put HR in P.


--
Lars Eighner usenet@larseigh ner.com http://www.larseighner.com/
This would be the best of all possible worlds,
if there were no religions in it. -- John Adams

[AndyZa]

Re: Closing paragraph tag required?

> If you have a paragraph, mark it up with P. You seem to think P means something like:[color=blue]
> "skip a line here," which it doesn't.[/color]

You're spot on! I've amended my wicked ways...

[AndyZa]

Re: Closing paragraph tag required?

> P means "this is a paragraph," not "make some space."

What is the best way to "make some space"?

[David Håsäther]

Re: Closing paragraph tag required?

AndyZa <andyza@webmail .co.za> wrote:
[color=blue][color=green]
>> P means "this is a paragraph," not "make some space."[/color]
>
> What is the best way to "make some space"?[/color]

Cascading Style Sheets.

--
David Håsäther

[Neredbojias]

Re: Closing paragraph tag required?

To further the education of mankind, "AndyZa" <andyza@webmail .co.za>
vouchsafed:
[color=blue][color=green]
>> P means "this is a paragraph," not "make some space."[/color]
>
> What is the best way to "make some space"?[/color]

Eat a lot of beans beforehand.

--
Neredbojias
Infinity has its limits.

[Andy Dingley]

Re: Closing paragraph tag required?


AndyZa wrote:[color=blue][color=green]
> > P means "this is a paragraph," not "make some space."[/color]
>
> What is the best way to "make some space"?[/color]

Don't "make some space", just take the space you already have and make
it look bigger.

Rather than adding "space" (i.e. adding something to the content in
your HTML document) instead take the "space" you already have (the
break between HTML elements) and use CSS to define its rendering as
being bigger than the default. Now you're just changing the
presentation of the same content, which is generally agreed to be a
better way of working.

Learn some CSS (a good thing in general) and start with the margin
properties. Ignore padding for the moment and learn CSS, CSS selectors,
use of the class attribute and the notion of "collapsing margins".

When you're happy with that, go on to learning about the "CSS box
model", the use of padding and border, and the sorry world of IE bugs
and the need for careful use of doctypes.

[phil-news-nospam@ipal.net]

Re: Closing paragraph tag required?

On Thu, 18 May 2006 14:08:35 +0200 Benjamin Niemann <pink@odahoda.d e> wrote:

| The end tag for P is optional. HR is a block level element which is not
| allowed as a child of P. But a parser will not complain about this, because
| </p> is optional and the P element is implicitly closed.

So what is the proper way to get the same effect as:
<hr noshade size=1 width="100%">
?

A while back someone suggested <object> but that didn't work and they did
not follow up.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[phil-news-nospam@ipal.net]

Re: Closing paragraph tag required?

On 19 May 2006 02:01:30 -0700 "Andy Dingley <dingbat@codesm iths.com>" <dingbat@codesm iths.com> wrote:
|
| AndyZa wrote:
|> > P means "this is a paragraph," not "make some space."
|>
|> What is the best way to "make some space"?
|
| Don't "make some space", just take the space you already have and make
| it look bigger.
|
| Rather than adding "space" (i.e. adding something to the content in
| your HTML document) instead take the "space" you already have (the
| break between HTML elements) and use CSS to define its rendering as
| being bigger than the default. Now you're just changing the
| presentation of the same content, which is generally agreed to be a
| better way of working.
|
| Learn some CSS (a good thing in general) and start with the margin
| properties. Ignore padding for the moment and learn CSS, CSS selectors,
| use of the class attribute and the notion of "collapsing margins".
|
| When you're happy with that, go on to learning about the "CSS box
| model", the use of padding and border, and the sorry world of IE bugs
| and the need for careful use of doctypes.

What about making a horizontal rule? Wouldn't you have to add something
to the HTML so you can select it to do something like border-top:1px ?

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Jukka K. Korpela]

A modern way of replacing &lt;hr noshade size=1 width=&quot;100 %&quot;&gt;

Under Subject: Re: Closing paragraph tag required?
phil-news-nospam@ipal.net <phil-news-nospam@ipal.net > scripsit:
[color=blue]
> On Thu, 18 May 2006 14:08:35 +0200 Benjamin Niemann <pink@odahoda.d e>
> wrote:
>[color=green]
>> The end tag for P is optional. HR is a block level element which is
>> not allowed as a child of P. But a parser will not complain about
>> this, because </p> is optional and the P element is implicitly
>> closed.[/color]
>
> So what is the proper way to get the same effect as:
> <hr noshade size=1 width="100%">
> ?[/color]

How does that question relate to what you quoted, or how does it fall under
the Subject line "Closing paragraph tag required?"? Please start a new
thread with a fresh Subject when you raise a completely new issue.

I guess there are three schools of thought:

1) <hr noshade size=1 width="100%"> is OK. It's not Puristically correct,
but there's really no harm. If you have several <hr> elements, you would
find it easier to style them in CSS, but actually CSS will override the
presentational attributes if needed, so there's little reason to clean up
the markup on _existing_ pages.

2) Just use <hr> in HTML and try to find suitable CSS that corresponds to
the (partly unspecified and browser-dependent) rendering of <hr ...>, e.g.
hr { border-top: solid 1px #999; height: 0; width: 100%; }

3) Remove the <hr> and set a bottom border for the preceding element or a
top border for the following element, with suitable padding and/or margin
settings. The drawback is that in non-CSS rendering, the possible idea of a
divider between major parts of a document has been lost.

If you ask me, 2) is the best approach, 1) is acceptable too, and 3) is
often acceptable and even the best approach when the ruler would be esthetic
rather than a divider.
[color=blue]
> A while back someone suggested <object> but that didn't work and they
> did not follow up.[/color]

Perhaps the regulars regarded it as too foolish an idea to be even commented
on.

[Andy Dingley]

Re: Closing paragraph tag required?


phil-news-nospam@ipal.net wrote:
[color=blue]
> What about making a horizontal rule? Wouldn't you have to add something
> to the HTML so you can select it to do something like border-top:1px ?[/color]

That would be influenced by things like collapsing margins and whether
we actually wished for a "break" or "rule" element to be output.

If you want an extra break between paras, then use a <br> This is
often required when working with floated <div>s, because you really
can't achieve the necessary results by applying clever CSS to the
visible <div>s themselves - there just aren't enough "hooks" to hang
the varying CSS from.

If you want a visible rule, then use a <hr>. Although you can make many
sorts of underscore appear by simply setting the border-bottom
property, it's generally better to code these as an explicit <hr>
element. This gives better (i.e. more intuitive) behaviour from
collapsing vertical margins with the default <div> content elements.
It's also an easy hook if you wanted to replace a simple horizontal
rule with some florid Victorian curlicue (turn off the borders of the
<hr> and add a background-image)

[Alan J. Flavell]

Re: Closing paragraph tag required?

On Mon, 22 May 2006, Andy Dingley <dingbat@codesm iths.com> wrote:
[color=blue]
> If you want an extra break between paras, then use a <br>[/color]
^^^^^^^

Was that meant to be theory or practice?

<br> is defined to be a line break. If there's no line to be broken,
then it's undefined what to do with <br>. What's more, in strict HTML
<br> is syntactically invalid outside of a suitable block element.

While it's true that most implementations interpret <br> as an
explicit newline request, rather than as a line break, I don't know
anything in the authoritative specifications which requires that, and
some browsers certainly have treated redundant <br> by simply ignoring
them.
[color=blue]
> This is often required when working with floated <div>s, because you
> really can't achieve the necessary results by applying clever CSS to
> the visible <div>s themselves - there just aren't enough "hooks" to
> hang the varying CSS from.[/color]

Any comments on http://positioniseverything.net/easyclearing.html ?

cheers

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Re: Closing paragraph tag required?

dingbat@codesmi ths.com <dingbat@codesm iths.com> scripsit:
[color=blue]
> If you want an extra break between paras, then use a <br>[/color]

Huh? What "extra break"? Why? In
<p>...</p><br><p>...</p>
(which seems to be what you suggest), the logical interpretation is that
<br> has no effect, since there is no line to be broken. Browsers are known
to do strange things with such <br> tags, but are you really recommending
that we rely on such (mis)behavior, which has some rough effect, instead of
the finer tuning achievable using CSS?
[color=blue]
> This is
> often required when working with floated <div>s,[/color]

I don't buy the idea, but anyway, this was about para(graph)s, not arbitrary
<div>s.
[color=blue]
> If you want a visible rule, then use a <hr>.[/color]

As I wrote under a different heading, in an attempt to make the Subject line
relate to the content, this really depends. The <hr> element is best
regarded as a logical divider, in the spirit of the good old HTML 2.0. Thus,
the question is whether the visible rule would be a manifestation of a
logical division, or just something cute and stylish.

[Andy Dingley]

Re: Closing paragraph tag required?


Alan J. Flavell wrote:[color=blue]
> On Mon, 22 May 2006, Andy Dingley <dingbat@codesm iths.com> wrote:
>[color=green]
> > If you want an extra break between paras, then use a <br>[/color]
> ^^^^^^^
>
> Was that meant to be theory or practice?
>
> <br> is defined to be a line break. If there's no line to be broken,
> then it's undefined what to do with <br>. What's more, in strict HTML
> <br> is syntactically invalid outside of a suitable block element.[/color]

That's an interesting question.

This is DTD-valid, but is it good practice?

<div id="big-overall-wrapper" >
<div>Paragrap hs and paragraphs of lorem ispsum</div>
<br>
<div>Even more wibble, several paras thereof</div>
</div>

You're right - <br> is intended as a line break. Now which is the
least-worst of these options?

- Use <br> in this case, because it's DTD-valid and a "reasonable "
extrapolation of "break"

- Use <hr>, with the visible rendering turned off, because it's a
"divider" after all

- Use an empty <div></div>, because that's the most strictly valid,
even though hardly meaningful.


[color=blue]
> Any comments on http://positioniseverything.net/easyclearing.html ?[/color]

OK for the trivial case, but you can still generate a complex case
where this isn't enough. My particular example was repeated pairs of
side-by-side <div>s, one containing an image and the other some
annotation. It's important that each pair starts vertically aligned,
but they're of varying heights.

(I have examples of these live, but the CSS is a bit "legacy" so I'm
not keen on citing them as an example. I might get to upload a "clean"
one sometime)