Quote:
Originally Posted by Psymon
Don't get me wrong, I'll take your (plural) advice, but I do actually think this totally, totally sucks. Of course, I also felt it sucked the other way, too, which compelled me to add in all that extra coding in the first place. :/
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Well you think the hyphenation algorithm stinks? The JUSTIFICATION algorithms stink! Especially without access to being able to tweak more complex microtypography (kerning, letter-width (stretching/shrinking a letter by 2-3%), letter-spacing (tweaking the space between characters a tiny bit), etc. etc.).
All these readers do just like your typical Word Processor... only change the spacing between WORDS.
Side Note: Well, kerning can be done at the font level, but meh, someone can always choose a new font, and your work goes out the window.
Much of this micro-typography is being implemented in CSS3, but meh, I don't know how well it is going to work, or be supported by reading devices.
Or let us take the hyphenation algorithm itself, the amount of hyphens in a single paragraph should really be minimized as much as possible (and heaven forbid, two lines MUST NOT have hyphens in a row). Here, you can see a comparison in justification/hyphenation between Word/InDesign/LaTeX:
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questi...esetting-ligat
Then if you REALLY want to get more into the typography rules of hyphenation, there are rules such as "a person's last name SHOULD NOT be hyphenated"... so you have to start wrapping all of those in <span class="donthyphenate">LastName</span>.
You should also avoid doing lots of things, because they are "more aesthetically pleasing".... but next thing you know, you have a huge mess of code like InDesign or Word outputs!
As I said, best to leave it up at the device/reader level, than to get super nitpicky. Too many variables for you to worry about. This is easy if you know the EXACT page size, and the EXACT font, and the EXACT font size (like if you are designing a print book)... but you start changing any of those variables, and most of your hard work goes out the window (or gets in the way/causes problems elsewhere).
Anyway, not stopping you from wanting to do all that hyphenation/nitpickyness.... but please, just don't globally disable/enable hyphenation via CSS. Use it sparingly (as was mentioned, maybe only disable hyphens in a <h1>, <h2>, <h3>).