There have been a couple of posts in the last few weeks that have used the <pre> tag instead of the <code> tag, with the result that a really long line of code or output isn't wrapped, making the main page of the site really w-i-d-e.

These super wide posts do get considered, and after a while the problem is addressed, but in the mean time, it bugs me. I admit that this is a pet peeve -- blame that on my background in newspaper production. A solution that suggests itself is to get rid of the <pre> tags that allow this kind of thing to happen. Is this tag necessary?

I think I'd rather have a chunk of code that's unreadable because it's rendered in a proportional font, than having something that looks fine, except that it's 200 characters wide and ruins the rest of the page.

Alternatively, can I suggest or gently urge the Janitors to act a little more quickly on the posts that require <code> tags in place of <pre>?

Another alternative is to move the hint If you think you're going to use <pre> tags — don't! .. so a spot above the list of approved tags -- although I don't know if that would work any better than the current solution.

Alex / talexb / Toronto

"Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds

In reply to Those 'wide load' posts by talexb

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
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