[WASTE-list] Soft return?

[Dan Korn]

On Sep 27, 2008, at 9:43 AM, Bo Lindbergh wrote:


> 27 sep 2008 kl. 00.28 skrev Dan Korn:

>> Is there any way to get a "soft return" (a simple line break  

>> without any first-line indentation, space between paragraphs, etc.)  

>> in WASTE, similar to what you get if you type Shift+Enter into a  

>> Rich Edit control on Windows or into MS Word?

>

> U+2028, line separator.


Thanks Bo.  That's exactly what I was looking for!


> I could argue that U+000A should have

> the same effect, but since we have a source license I won't.


I do have the WASTE source code and there doesn't seem to be any  
mention of U+2028, 0x2028, or decimal 8232, but that character does  
seem to work as a simple line break without invoking any first-line  
indents or space between paragraphs.  (FWIW the Rich Edit control on  
Windows uses ASCII 11 (0xB), "vertical tab", to accomplish this.)  I  
don't think I agree that ASCII 10 (0xA) should be treated as a "soft  
return" as it's a standard "regular" end-of-line character on Unix,  
and those are generally interpreted as paragraph break markers.  I  
mean, when the user hits Return, they're generally expecting to start  
a new paragraph, no?  The "soft return" would seem to be the more  
special case.  Unicode does attempt to topple or at least work around  
this line-ending Tower of Babel with more explicitly-purposed  
characters, but the ASCII line-ending mess has been built up very  
solidly over the years.

A follow up:  Do you know if





there's a standard way to input the Unicode Line Separator character  
from the keyboard on Mac?  I can have my app accept Shift+Return like  
on Windows, but I'd like to follow the Mac convention if there is one.

Thanks again,
Dan