[Doc-SIG] Re: David's Idea for Lazy Indentation

[David Goodger]

Moore, Paul <Paul.Moore@atosorigin.com> wrote on 2001-08-15 04:20:
> From: David Goodger [mailto:dgoodger@bigfoot.com]
> >In this case, the context is for applications like Wikis and email,
> >where decent editors are not available...
> 
> Hmm. So this is a context where the original plain text is never
> going to be read "raw"?

Yes, but it's the lack of decent editing support that's the real
issue. The "lazy mode" was requested [1]_ especially for the use of
Wikis, where there's typically only an edit box on a web page in which
to insert one's post. Manually indenting under these conditions can be
onerous.

.. _[1] Requested most recently by Garth Kidd, who is connected to the
   MoinMoin_ Wiki clone:
   http://moin.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/moin/moin/

> But I have some thoughts there. First, I can't imagine that sort of
> problem *ever* being automatically fixable.

Agreed. I wouldn't try to fix such problems. What the lazy mode allows
is minimal indentation from the beginning, so that bad line wrapping
doesn't matter, like this::

    - This is a bullet
    list item.

    - Here's another.

If this is wrapped 10 columns in, we get this::

    - This is 
    a bullet
    list item.

    - Here's 
    another.

The accidental wrapping doesn't adversely affect the markup
recognition (or affects it less). We can't mix strict and lazy
indentation though; doesn't work (as evidenced by your previous
message).

-- 
David Goodger    dgoodger@bigfoot.com    Open-source projects:
 - Python Docstring Processing System: http://docstring.sourceforge.net
 - reStructuredText: http://structuredtext.sourceforge.net
 - The Go Tools Project: http://gotools.sourceforge.net