Hard Space

Hard Space#

I couldn't find any way in the spec to put in a "hard space" which would not removed. E.g "|Row one" vs. "| Row one"

-- Isonomia 2008, Apr, 28

There isn't.

-- YvesPiguet, 2008-Apr-28

Logically speaking a "hard space" (&nbsp;) should be an escaped white space "~ ". Obviously this may not be isn't possible which makes a space a bit of a special case alongside a "hard newline" (<br>) which should be:-

"This is a line of text~<uline> continuation"

OK, so it would appear that a "hard newline" is
<uline>

Accoding to wikipedia " In Wikitext, the character entity reference   often represents NBSP. In TeX and LaTeX, a tilde (~) is used to denote the hard space."

As someone who can't remember &nbsp even though I use it regularly I would wholeheartedly try to disuade anyone from using &nbsp. would be a sensible proposal, but 10:1 people will not expect to suddenly disappear everytime they put it into the text so I wouldn't support its use.

Other suggestions I have are:-

1. {} "An empty image????"
2. <> "???
3. [] "An empty link .... I'm going to suggest this for internal links"
4. \~ "Almost logical but Not at all practical.

I can't remember ever seeing "<>" being used elsewhere so perhaps as it almost represents a container of space, it is perhaps the most sensible proposal.

-- Isonomia 2008-Apr-28