p tags and indenting in Html Mode

p tags and indenting in Html Mode

[Tyler Smith]

Hi,

Html mode recognizes that <p> tags don't need to be closed, so 
successive tags get indented to the same level. But when an unclosed <p> 
tag is followed by a heading (e.g., <h3>), the heading gets indented as 
if it were within the previous <p>, as do all subsequent tags that 
aren't <p> tags. In other words, the heading is indented further than 
the <p> tags that were there before. How can I get html mode to keep the 
indentation at the same level? I put a small example below to clarify.

I've tried google and the mail archives, but searching on html mode, p 
tags, indenting etc. gave me lots of apparently unrelated info. Thanks 
for your help!

Tyler

GNU Emacs 22.3.1 (i386-mingw-nt6.0.6002) of 2008-09-06
Windows Vista
(I know this is not the newest version of Emacs, but until I get time to 
get my work machine switched over to Debian I'm stuck with this)

what I get now:

      <h3 id="catalog">Catalog Description</h3>

      <p>Prerequisite: BIO 121. Structure and functions vascular plants; 
morphology, classification, life histories,
        ecology and evolution of autotrophs, plantlike protists, and 
fungi. 3 Lec/3 Lab.

        <h3 id="location">When and Where</h3>

        <dl>
          <dt>Lectures, Moore 123:</dt><dd>Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30 to 
10:45</dd>
          <dt>Labs, Moore 202:</dt><dd>Tuesday 12:30 to 3:15</dd>
        </dl>
       
        <h3 id="textbook">Textbooks</h3>

      <p>blah blah blah

What I'd like:
      <h3 id="catalog">Catalog Description</h3>

      <p>Prerequisite: BIO 121. Structure and functions vascular plants; 
morphology, classification, life histories,
        ecology and evolution of autotrophs, plantlike protists, and 
fungi. 3 Lec/3 Lab.

      <h3 id="location">When and Where</h3>

      <dl>
        <dt>Lectures, Moore 123:</dt><dd>Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30 to 
10:45</dd>
        <dt>Labs, Moore 202:</dt><dd>Tuesday 12:30 to 3:15</dd>
      </dl>
       
      <h3 id="textbook">Textbooks</h3>

      <p>blah blah blah

p tags and indenting in Html Mode

[Tyler Smith]

Hi,

Html mode recognizes that <p> tags don't need to be closed, so
successive tags get indented to the same level. But when an unclosed <p>
tag is followed by a heading (e.g., <h3>), the heading gets indented as
if it were within the previous <p>, as do all subsequent tags that
aren't <p> tags. In other words, the heading is indented further than
the <p> tags that were there before. How can I get html mode to keep the
indentation at the same level? I put a small example below to clarify.

I've tried google and the mail archives, but searching on html mode, p
tags, indenting etc. gave me lots of apparently unrelated info. Thanks
for your help!

Tyler

GNU Emacs 22.3.1 (i386-mingw-nt6.0.6002) of 2008-09-06
Windows Vista
(I know this is not the newest version of Emacs, but until I get time to
get my work machine switched over to Debian I'm stuck with this)

what I get now:

       <h3 id="catalog">Catalog Description</h3>

       <p>Structure and function of vascular plants.

         <h3 id="location">When and Where</h3>

         <dl>
           <dt>Lectures, Moore 123:</dt><dd>Tuesday 9:30</dd>
           <dt>Labs, Moore 202:</dt><dd>Tuesday 12:30</dd>
         </dl>

         <h3 id="textbook">Textbooks</h3>

       <p>blah blah blah

What I'd like:

       <h3 id="catalog">Catalog Description</h3>

       <p>Structure and function of vascular plants.

       <h3 id="location">When and Where</h3>

       <dl>
         <dt>Lectures, Moore 123:</dt><dd>Tuesday 9:30</dd>
         <dt>Labs, Moore 202:</dt><dd>Tuesday 12:30</dd>
       </dl>

       <h3 id="textbook">Textbooks</h3>

       <p>blah blah blah

Re: p tags and indenting in Html Mode

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Tyler Smith <tyler.smith@eku.edu> writes:
> Html mode recognizes that <p> tags don't need to be closed, so
> successive tags get indented to the same level. But when an unclosed
> <p> tag is followed by a heading (e.g., <h3>), the heading gets
> indented as if it were within the previous <p>, as do all subsequent
> tags that aren't <p> tags. In other words, the heading is indented
> further than the <p> tags that were there before. How can I get html
> mode to keep the indentation at the same level? I put a small example
> below to clarify.
>
> I've tried google and the mail archives, but searching on html mode, p
> tags, indenting etc. gave me lots of apparently unrelated info. Thanks
> for your help!

Close your tags!  So your html becomes more compatible with xhtml.

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

Re: p tags and indenting in Html Mode

[Richard Riley]

pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:

> Tyler Smith <tyler.smith@eku.edu> writes:
>> Html mode recognizes that <p> tags don't need to be closed, so
>> successive tags get indented to the same level. But when an unclosed
>> <p> tag is followed by a heading (e.g., <h3>), the heading gets
>> indented as if it were within the previous <p>, as do all subsequent
>> tags that aren't <p> tags. In other words, the heading is indented
>> further than the <p> tags that were there before. How can I get html
>> mode to keep the indentation at the same level? I put a small example
>> below to clarify.
>>
>> I've tried google and the mail archives, but searching on html mode, p
>> tags, indenting etc. gave me lots of apparently unrelated info. Thanks
>> for your help!
>
> Close your tags!  So your html becomes more compatible with xhtml.

A lot of web designers don't go anyway near xhtml because it's a pain
and doesn't work properly anywhere other than in theory :-; A google for
"xhtml not working" tells you why.

Having said that closing tags is a better idea.

Re: p tags and indenting in Html Mode

[Tyler Smith]

Richard Riley wrote:
> pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:
>   
>> Tyler Smith <tyler.smith@eku.edu> writes:
>>     
>>> Html mode recognizes that <p> tags don't need to be closed, so
>>> successive tags get indented to the same level. But when an unclosed
>>> <p> tag is followed by a heading (e.g., <h3>), the heading gets
>>> indented as if it were within the previous <p>, as do all subsequent
>>> tags that aren't <p> tags. In other words, the heading is indented
>>> further than the <p> tags that were there before. How can I get html
>>> mode to keep the indentation at the same level? I put a small example
>>> below to clarify.
>>>
>>>       
>> Close your tags!  So your html becomes more compatible with xhtml.
>>     
>
> A lot of web designers don't go anyway near xhtml because it's a pain
> and doesn't work properly anywhere other than in theory :-; A google for
> "xhtml not working" tells you why.
>
> Having said that closing tags is a better idea.
>   

I don't really care one way or the other about xhtml. I tried closing my 
tags by turning on sgml-xml-mode. This makes html mode insert a closing 
</p> tag, which solves my original problem. But it also expects closing 
tags for other html tags that don't normally use them: link, base, img 
etc. So in sgml-xml-mode, indentation is screwed up following all of 
those tags. I can of course manually close my <p> tags, or use C-c /, 
but there should be a better way. Can I make html-mode close p tags 
without turning on sgml-xml-mode? I have tried poking around with the 
tag skeletons, but I find the documentation a little challenging.

As an off-topic aside, is xhtml still moving forward? I thought the W3C 
had recently decided to ditch it in favor of html 5? Anything I've read 
suggests that there's no compelling reason to use xhtml for webdesign. 
If that's the case, I'd rather get html-mode configured to support 
regular html. I'm not really invested in either option, I just want 
consistent indentation that doesn't require manually tweaking my tags.

Thanks again,

Tyler

Re: p tags and indenting in Html Mode

[Edward O'Connor]

> As an off-topic aside, is xhtml still moving forward? I thought the W3C had
> recently decided to ditch it in favor of html 5?

That's not quite what's happened, no. HTML5 defines HTML as an
abstract DOM language with two serializations: one serialization is
compatible with legacy HTML handling, and one is XML. This latter
serialization is called XHTML5.

XHTML2, on the other hand, was a backwards-incompatible, XML-based
hypertext document format that unfortunately shared the letters H, T,
M, and L in its name with the HTML and XHTML you know and love. It's
this language, XHTML2, whose working group has been EOLed by the W3C.


HTH.
Ted

Re: p tags and indenting in Html Mode

[Lennart Borgman]

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 1:58 PM, Richard Riley<rileyrgdev@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> A lot of web designers don't go anyway near xhtml because it's a pain
> and doesn't work properly anywhere other than in theory :-; A google for
> "xhtml not working" tells you why.


Could you please point to some specific page telling "xhtml not working"?

Re: p tags and indenting in Html Mode

[Richard Riley]

Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> writes:

> On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 1:58 PM, Richard Riley<rileyrgdev@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> A lot of web designers don't go anyway near xhtml because it's a pain
>> and doesn't work properly anywhere other than in theory :-; A google for
>> "xhtml not working" tells you why.
>
>
> Could you please point to some specific page telling "xhtml not working"?
>
>

Well the one I tried when debugging nxhtml last year for one : or any
xhtml pages on ie6 (still about 10-20% of browsers) .. there are
countless examples in google land.

As I say there is a groundswell of people who have dropped xhtml
completely and reverted to html 4.01 in order to get cross browser
compatibility. I don#t support it per se, but thems the facts.

Re: p tags and indenting in Html Mode

[Tyler Smith]

Apologies if this gets posted twice. I waited more than 24 hours for the 
first response I sent to show up, but I think it got lost.

Richard Riley wrote:
> pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:
>   
>> Tyler Smith <tyler.smith@eku.edu> writes:
>>     
>>> Html mode recognizes that <p> tags don't need to be closed, so
>>> successive tags get indented to the same level. But when an unclosed
>>> <p> tag is followed by a heading (e.g., <h3>), the heading gets
>>> indented as if it were within the previous <p>, as do all subsequent
>>> tags that aren't <p> tags. In other words, the heading is indented
>>> further than the <p> tags that were there before. How can I get html
>>> mode to keep the indentation at the same level? I put a small example
>>> below to clarify.
>>>
>>>       
>> Close your tags!  So your html becomes more compatible with xhtml.
>>     
>
> A lot of web designers don't go anyway near xhtml because it's a pain
> and doesn't work properly anywhere other than in theory :-; A google for
> "xhtml not working" tells you why.
>
> Having said that closing tags is a better idea.
>   

I don't really care one way or the other about xhtml. I tried closing my
tags by turning on sgml-xml-mode. This makes html mode insert a closing
</p> tag, which solves my original problem. But it also expects closing
tags for other html tags that don't normally use them: link, base, img
etc. So in sgml-xml-mode, indentation is screwed up following all of
those tags. I can of course manually close my <p> tags, or use C-c /,
but there should be a better way. Can I make html-mode close p tags
without turning on sgml-xml-mode? I have tried poking around with the
tag skeletons, but I find the documentation a little challenging.

As an off-topic aside, is xhtml still moving forward? I thought the W3C
had recently decided to ditch it in favor of html 5? Anything I've read
suggests that there's no compelling reason to use xhtml for webdesign.
If that's the case, I'd rather get html-mode configured to support
regular html. I'm not really invested in either option, I just want
consistent indentation that doesn't require manually tweaking my tags.

Thanks again,

Tyler

Re: p tags and indenting in Html Mode

[Richard Riley]

Tyler Smith <tyler.smith@eku.edu> writes:

> Richard Riley wrote:
>> pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:
>>   
>>> Tyler Smith <tyler.smith@eku.edu> writes:
>>>     
>>>> Html mode recognizes that <p> tags don't need to be closed, so
>>>> successive tags get indented to the same level. But when an unclosed
>>>> <p> tag is followed by a heading (e.g., <h3>), the heading gets
>>>> indented as if it were within the previous <p>, as do all subsequent
>>>> tags that aren't <p> tags. In other words, the heading is indented
>>>> further than the <p> tags that were there before. How can I get html
>>>> mode to keep the indentation at the same level? I put a small example
>>>> below to clarify.
>>>>
>>>>       
>>> Close your tags!  So your html becomes more compatible with xhtml.
>>>     
>>
>> A lot of web designers don't go anyway near xhtml because it's a pain
>> and doesn't work properly anywhere other than in theory :-; A google for
>> "xhtml not working" tells you why.
>>
>> Having said that closing tags is a better idea.
>>   
>
> I don't really care one way or the other about xhtml. I tried closing my 
> tags by turning on sgml-xml-mode. This makes html mode insert a closing 
> </p> tag, which solves my original problem. But it also expects closing 
> tags for other html tags that don't normally use them: link, base, img 
> etc. So in sgml-xml-mode, indentation is screwed up following all of 
> those tags. I can of course manually close my <p> tags, or use C-c /, 
> but there should be a better way. Can I make html-mode close p tags 
> without turning on sgml-xml-mode? I have tried poking around with the 
> tag skeletons, but I find the documentation a little challenging.
>
> As an off-topic aside, is xhtml still moving forward? I thought the W3C 
> had recently decided to ditch it in favor of html 5? Anything I've read 
> suggests that there's no compelling reason to use xhtml for
> webdesign. 

I tried it and regretted a LOT of wasted time and effort. It talked a
good talk but failed the walk. I was somewhat surprised by some replies
there that seemed to suggest xhtml was the working, accepted
standard. It's most certainly not and a LOT of programmers have dropped
it. So I'm with you on that one.

> If that's the case, I'd rather get html-mode configured to support 
> regular html. I'm not really invested in either option, I just want 
> consistent indentation that doesn't require manually tweaking my tags.

I use nxhtml generally, but there are issues I intend to report back to
Lennart. Its pretty slow and there are some nasty indentation issues with
certain mixed files (php and x/html). Having said that I do close tags.

I'm still not sure of the best way to use emacs for this kind of
programming, but nxhtml seems the best of the bunch for me.

Re: p tags and indenting in Html Mode

[Lennart Borgman]

On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 12:52 AM, Richard Riley<rileyrgdev@gmail.com> wrote:

>> As an off-topic aside, is xhtml still moving forward? I thought the W3C
>> had recently decided to ditch it in favor of html 5? Anything I've read
>> suggests that there's no compelling reason to use xhtml for
>> webdesign.
>
> I tried it and regretted a LOT of wasted time and effort. It talked a
> good talk but failed the walk. I was somewhat surprised by some replies
> there that seemed to suggest xhtml was the working, accepted
> standard. It's most certainly not and a LOT of programmers have dropped
> it. So I'm with you on that one.


One of the reason to use XHTML is that it is well structured so that
you can use completion. Maybe that would be possible for HTML too, but
there is no completion for HTML in Emacs yet.


> I use nxhtml generally, but there are issues I intend to report back to
> Lennart. Its pretty slow


Please give me an example of what you find slow. It might be a bug somewhere.


> and there are some nasty indentation issues with
> certain mixed files (php and x/html).


I have added some support to make indentation in mixed files better,
but it is not yet in use. It would be nice to have someone more
helping in developing MuMaMo.

Re: p tags and indenting in Html Mode

[Richard Riley]

Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> writes:

> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 12:52 AM, Richard Riley<rileyrgdev@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> As an off-topic aside, is xhtml still moving forward? I thought the W3C
>>> had recently decided to ditch it in favor of html 5? Anything I've read
>>> suggests that there's no compelling reason to use xhtml for
>>> webdesign.
>>
>> I tried it and regretted a LOT of wasted time and effort. It talked a
>> good talk but failed the walk. I was somewhat surprised by some replies
>> there that seemed to suggest xhtml was the working, accepted
>> standard. It's most certainly not and a LOT of programmers have dropped
>> it. So I'm with you on that one.
>
>
> One of the reason to use XHTML is that it is well structured so that
> you can use completion. Maybe that would be possible for HTML too, but
> there is no completion for HTML in Emacs yet.

company-mode seems the most promising for general completion of keywords
and so forth, but does not have the smart completion for tag specific
attributes you have in nxtml I think (I never used that feature to be
honest since html tags are pretty limited anyway).


>> I use nxhtml generally, but there are issues I intend to report back to
>> Lennart. Its pretty slow
>
>
> Please give me an example of what you find slow. It might be a bug
> somewhere.

Generally the fontification/format display. I'll email you an example
later.

>
>> and there are some nasty indentation issues with
>> certain mixed files (php and x/html).
>
>
> I have added some support to make indentation in mixed files better,
> but it is not yet in use. It would be nice to have someone more
> helping in developing MuMaMo.
>

nxhtml has been my main mode for a while now - it's good.

Re: p tags and indenting in Html Mode

[Lennart Borgman]

On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 2:16 PM, Richard Riley<rileyrgdev@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> company-mode seems the most promising for general completion of keywords
> and so forth, but does not have the smart completion for tag specific
> attributes you have in nxtml I think (I never used that feature to be
> honest since html tags are pretty limited anyway).

I think you can say that company-mode is akin to completing-read in
the sense that it present the completion candidates to the user, but
it does not know how to get the completion candidates. The way
company-mode presents them looks very nice,

There is also completionUI that is similar in structure. Both these
are distributed with some examples.

I actually wrote a backend for company-mode for nxhtml-mode. It works
pretty nice, but some changes have to be made to company-mode to make
it do everything the current popup menus in nXhtml can do. (There is a
lot the popup menus can't do of course, but I wrote them for nXhtml so
they can do what nxhtml-mode needs.)

When wrote this backend I also noticed a bug in Emacs that prevented
the use overlays the way company-mode uses them. (If someone is
interested and have time to fix this please do.)

Re: p tags and indenting in Html Mode

[Richard Riley]

Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> writes:

> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 2:16 PM, Richard Riley<rileyrgdev@googlemail.com> wrote:
>>
>> company-mode seems the most promising for general completion of keywords
>> and so forth, but does not have the smart completion for tag specific
>> attributes you have in nxtml I think (I never used that feature to be
>> honest since html tags are pretty limited anyway).
>
> I think you can say that company-mode is akin to completing-read in
> the sense that it present the completion candidates to the user, but
> it does not know how to get the completion candidates. The way
> company-mode presents them looks very nice,

I'm not sure of the context of your meaning there when you say company
does not know how to get completion candidates.

One thing thats excellent is the semantic backend : excellent completion
in C for example including libraries. Things like company-dabbrev make
suitable completion candidates for more general buffers.

company and semantic seem to be the way for completion in emacs from
what I have seen and tried. The water is very muddy though with many
competing methods such as anything, ido and others : I'm really not even
sure where the overlaps in getting completion candidates occurs anymore.

>
> There is also completionUI that is similar in structure. Both these
> are distributed with some examples.
>
> I actually wrote a backend for company-mode for nxhtml-mode. It works
> pretty nice, but some changes have to be made to company-mode to make
> it do everything the current popup menus in nXhtml can do. (There is a
> lot the popup menus can't do of course, but I wrote them for nXhtml so
> they can do what nxhtml-mode needs.)
>
> When wrote this backend I also noticed a bug in Emacs that prevented
> the use overlays the way company-mode uses them. (If someone is
> interested and have time to fix this please do.)
>

-- 

Re: p tags and indenting in Html Mode

[Lennart Borgman]

On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 5:31 PM, Richard Riley<rileyrgdev@googlemail.com> wrote:

> I'm not sure of the context of your meaning there when you say company
> does not know how to get completion candidates.


Company mode has three components:

1) A framework for tying backends (who gives comletion candidates)
with frontends (who present the choices to the user).

2) A front end which presents the choices.

3) Some backends, for example the semantic backend.


CompletionUI is similar in structure.


> One thing thats excellent is the semantic backend : excellent completion
> in C for example including libraries. Things like company-dabbrev make
> suitable completion candidates for more general buffers.


Yes, but notice that it is semantic that gives the completion
candidates, not company-mode.


> company and semantic seem to be the way for completion in emacs from
> what I have seen and tried. The water is very muddy though with many
> competing methods such as anything, ido and others : I'm really not even
> sure where the overlaps in getting completion candidates occurs anymore.


I think both company-mode and completionUI are attempt to give more
structure to this, see 1 and 2 above. I hope a mix of them can make
its way into Emacs.