<pre> tags on wide lines

[tod222]

The node Need to turn off prints from module was approved and then Front-paged despite having a wide line inside a <pre> tag.

In the section Tags You Should NOT Use, Markup in the Monastery says:

At first blush, the <pre> ...</pre pair may look like an alternative to code tags... BUT DON'T USE IT HERE chiefly because <pre>...</pre> tags will not wrap lines that are too long for the viewer's browser window.

In the past several months it's been a common occurrence to see the front page layout messed up by a wide line inside a <pre> tag in a node that's been approved and Front-paged. By comparison, this happened rarely a couple of years ago due to better moderation. I recall logging in and finding a private message about needing to fix up a wide <pre> line in one of my nodes.

<pre> tags have been discussed previously in <pre> vs. <code> tags.

[Anonymous Monk]

It could be solved for modern browsers by adding pre { white-space: pre-wrap; } to the site's stylesheet.

See the CSS2 specification for how it's supposed to work, and Quirksmode for browser support and test cases.

[Corion]

Thanks!

This rule is now used in the common.css file and thus PRE tags should now wrap nicer.

[tod222]

Is your modified common.css file live? I'm not seeing any difference with wide <pre> lines, for example the node perl read a file on Windows is very strange.

[roboticus]

Awesome! That fixed things nicely for me. I'm certain the gang playing with style sheets for a site facelift will want to add this to the default.

...roboticus

[kcott]

I agree there have been a number of poorly formatted (and even unformatted) nodes that have been Front-paged: this, of course, reflects poorly on the site in general.

Looking at the responses regarding CSS, it's quite possible that moderators using such CSS rules where unaware of the problem. This presents something of a dilemma.

One solution might be to add alerts to the Approval Nodelet. One such alert could perhaps be a standard reminder, e.g. Don't front-page unformatted nodes.; another could be conditional such as This node contains <pre> tag(s) - check before front-paging!.

This sort of change would require:

1. Discussion and consensus.
2. A volunteer to do the work. I'd be happy to take on the task but would seek guidance on what groups I need to join (e.g. pmdev) and other prerequisites (e.g. setting up a test environment).

[roho]

The top part of PM pages now displays as shown below (right justified against right margin) using IE8. What's even more odd, it still displays normally using Firefox. Is this caused by the CSS mod? If so, how can it be undone?

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[pmonk4ever]

Well, I have seen this behavior on IE8 as well, however, it only seems to be happening on nodes with long Title Lines, on short titles (4 words or less), it displays normally.

I'm not sure if it is because of CSS, or because of a code change, as perlmonks is maintained by a few dedicated monks who sometimes work late into the night.

I'm sure if you dropped a /msg to the Gods, referencing this node, they would look at it.

Cheers!

[jdporter]

I'm sure if you dropped a /msg to the Gods, referencing this node, they would look at it.

Um, no, actually, this is more of a pmdev concern — they broke it; they should fix it.

But the best course of action is to post a public PMD, just as the OP has done.

BTW... Does the problem persist? It's been a while, and some changes have been made.

Thanks.