nnslashdot paragraphs fix, please check

nnslashdot paragraphs fix, please check

[Per Abrahamsen]

Slashdot paragraphs often seem to consist of the sequence <BR>^M<BR>
as in the example below.


<TR><TD bgcolor=ffffff>I saw myself beginning to ramble. bear in mind i've gone a few days with little sleep and the finals beckon.\r<br>\r<br>perhaps here is a truncated 'point' :)\r<br>\r<br>given the dilemma as to whether ideas in and of themselves should be free, can you blame richard stallman for being so pro-free-software?\r<br>\r<br>uh, yeah, that's it :-)\r<br>im going to sleep now ...\r<br><BR>--

nnslahsdot turn <br><br> into <p>, but that doesn't work with the CR
inbetween.  The following fix will allow any whitespace between the <br>'s.

Is this the right way to solve it?  Please comment.

1999-12-14  Per Abrahamsen  <abraham@dina.kvl.dk>

	* nnslashdot.el (nnslashdot-request-article): Allow whitespace
	between two `<br>' when translating into `<p>'.

Index: nnslashdot.el
===================================================================
RCS file: /usr/local/cvsroot/gnus/lisp/nnslashdot.el,v
retrieving revision 5.39
diff -c -r5.39 nnslashdot.el
*** nnslashdot.el	1999/12/14 00:14:06	5.39
--- nnslashdot.el	1999/12/14 11:54:50
***************
*** 344,350 ****
  	(erase-buffer)
  	(insert contents)
  	(goto-char (point-min))
! 	(while (search-forward "<br><br>" nil t)
  	  (replace-match "<p>" t t))
  	(goto-char (point-min))
  	(insert "Content-Type: text/html\nMIME-Version: 1.0\n")
--- 344,350 ----
  	(erase-buffer)
  	(insert contents)
  	(goto-char (point-min))
! 	(while (search-forward-regexp "<br>\\s-*<br>" nil t)
  	  (replace-match "<p>" t t))
  	(goto-char (point-min))
  	(insert "Content-Type: text/html\nMIME-Version: 1.0\n")

Re: nnslashdot paragraphs fix, please check

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes:

> nnslahsdot turn <br><br> into <p>, but that doesn't work with the CR
> inbetween.  The following fix will allow any whitespace between the <br>'s.

nnslashdot now translates all the <br>'s into <p>'s.  I think that
makes Slashdot vaguely more readable, but there are some places that
<br> is actually what people were aiming for.  It's not very common,
though.

The difference between many web pages and news articles is that web
pages often look like:

-------
This is a paragraph that goes like this
and ends here.
And a new paragraph starts here and continues
until it ends.
-------

While in news that would be:

-------
This is a paragraph that goes like this
and ends here.

And a new paragraph starts here and continues
until it ends.
-------

And webby people achieve the former by ending paragraphs with <br>.
A division between representation and presentation?  What's that,
then? 

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen