Re: HTML output for @quotation + @author

[Patrice Dumas]

On Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 11:34:36AM +0800, Mahlon wrote:
> 20 Nov 2014
> 
> There are two issues for the HTML output when using the @author
> command within a @quotation:
> 
> 1) A blank line is generated between the quotation itself and the
> author's name. This extra line is not present in the info output.

The info/HTML output need not be exactly the same, they just need to
be somehow similar.  In particular, an extra blank line difference is no
big deal.  In fact, in Info, the output should mirror what the user
entered when possible, in term of blank lines, but in HTML we rely more
on the browser rendering of HTML elements.

In that precise case, I see no trouble with the difference between Info
and HTML.  You may argue, however, that a blank line in HTML is not
nice.  In the precise case of @quotation and @author, I agree that for
short quotes it may be preferable to avoid a blank line, but for long
quotation, I think that a blank line is preferable -- though I am far
from being an "editor".  I would prefer not to have to do something
different between short and long quotes.

> 2) The author's name (and the emdash) are centered on the page. This
> mirrors the info output, but the author's name looks isolated
> (lonely?) in the HTML output, especially for a short quotation,
> because the name may be considerably beyond the quotation itself.
> 
> For the following source:
> 
> @quotation
> 
> "A penny saved is a penny earned."
> 
> @author Benjamin Franklin
> 
> @end quotation
> 
> 
> currently, the HTML looks like this:
> 
> <blockquote>
> 
> <p>&quot;A penny saved is a penny earned.&quot;
> 
> </p></blockquote>
> 
> <div align="center">&mdash; <em>Benjamin Franklin</em>
> 
> </div>
> 
> 
> 
> Logically, the 'author' output should be _inside_ the
> <blockquote><p>, thus eliminating the extra blank line _and_
> beautifying the horizontal alignment. For example:
> 
> <blockquote>
> 
> <p>&quot;A penny saved is a penny earned.&quot;<br>
> 
> <span style="margin-left:3.2em">&mdash; <em>Benjamin Franklin</em></span>
> 
> </p></blockquote>
> 
> 
> Note that the '3.2em' indentation is used in the above example
> because it agrees with all the other indentations generated by the
> texi-to-HTML converter.

But in paragraph/block indenting, which is not the same, in my opinion.
Also, I think that it is too different from Info (and from TeX,
hopefully), so I think the current implementation is better.

> Note also that depending on where the last
> line of the word-wrrapped quotation naturally ends, the <br> _might_
> generate an extra blank line anyway, but I don't think we can do
> anything about that...

Personnally, I don't like much using <br>.  using a <div> seems to me to
be easier to customize with CSS.  In the default case <div> adds an
extra blank line, but I am not sure that it is bad.


Right now, in HTML, the @author is added as 

@center --- @emph{{author}}

Using @-commands has the advantage that the string can be modified and
the formatting too, for example for different languages.  The