Re: obscure new display features

[Dave Love]

Miles Bader <address@hidden> writes:

>> > I've no idea why non-breaking characters should be displayed like
>> > this, but U+00AD isn't one -- it's SOFT HYPHEN.  If you're going to
>> > change its display, the issue (see Unicode) is whether or not it
>> > should be displayed at all -- not that I think it should be
>> > invisible.
>> 
>> I guess it should be visible at the end of the line.
>
> I think the same distinction used for NBSP applies:

Why?  It isn't a no-break character.  What on earth is the deal with
no-break anyhow?  I doubt other users will understand this any more
than I do.  Perhaps someone could explain...

> In _editing_
> contexts, it's useful to display it (1) always,

Yes.

> (2) uniquely,

Does that mean you want to ban homoglyphs?  If so, you're on a loser.

> and (3) noticeably, all of which are satisfied by treating like
> other escape characters.

What does `escape characters' mean?  I don't see how these characters
could be described any way like that.

> In _display_ contexts, again similarly to NBSP, it would
> make sense to display it as a normal hyphen at the end of the line and
> invisible elsewhere.

No, U+00AD is a _format_ character.  (I realize ISO 8859 says SHY is a
graphic -- with vague semantics, and doesn't display it as such in the
tables -- but Unicode is presumably more recent and has a coherent
treatment of it.)  This is beside the point outside something like W3,
though.