I haven't used MS Word in over a year... and that was Word 2000. What I remember
is you could pile up spaces in the right-hand margin. Another behavior I
remember about Word that is different than OO Write: When centering text Word
ignores trailing spaces on the line. So you cannot nudge your text to the left
by sticking extra spaces on the right. I prefer Word's handling of centered text.


@ barryii

Your proposal at "#desc52" is similar to mine, except that you "glue" the cursor
to the character that precedes it, while I propose "gluing" the cursor to the
character that follows it. Both have a certain logic and make sense.

In your method when a typist sticks a string of spaces at the end of the line,
the cursor (and presumably the pilcrow that follows it) gets pushed into the
margin, possibly quite far into the margin. From a user interface point-of-view
this will probably work best if you allow the window to scroll sideways so the
typist can always see the cursor in its correct position, relative to the spaces
typed.

In my method I wanted to snap the cursor down to the next line at the first
practical moment, in effect saying to the typist, "Put your text here." If he
continues to tap the space bar the cursor does not advance on the new line, but
spaces pile up in the margin of the previous line. Another message I wanted to
give the typist by this action is, "No matter how many spaces you stick in here,
they are not gonna go at the beginning of the new line." Another thing I was
trying to do with my method is to have a behavior that works without scrolling
sideways to see all those spaces. That is, the user knows there are bunches of
spaces (perhaps they can see only a dozen), but they don't always know exactly
how many.

When the typist has "show nonprinting characters" turned off, your method is
better. When the typist has "show nonprinting characters" turned on, both
methods are equally good.

Not quite, "six of one, half-dozen of the other," because the two methods
provide a different user experience. Perhaps a comparison. The setup: the user
has typed a word and the end of the word is right up against the margin. The
next character the user will type is a space. In all three methods, before the
user types the space the cursor is at the edge of the margin and the pilcrow is
in the margin.

Present method: After typing the space there is no visual change. The user must
type the first character of the next word to see any change. If the user types
another space, still no visible change (although both spaces are there).

Your proposed method: After typing the space, a visible space is in the margin
followed by the pilcrow with the cursor planted between them. To snap the cursor
down to the next line the user must type the first character of the next word.
If the user types another space a second space appears in the margin and pushes
the cursor and pilcrow deeper into the margin.

My proposed method: After typing the space, a visible space is in the margin
(but only visible if "show nonprinting characters" is on) and the cursor has
snapped down to the next line along with the pilcrow, waiting for the user to
type the first letter of the next word. If the user types another space a second
space appears behind the first in the margin of the previous line, and neither
cursor nor pilcrow moves.

I was trying to create a spec where horizontal scrolling was not necessary if
the user puts a zillion spaces on a line. However, with "show nonprinting
characters" turned off, my method has a distinct disadvantage for those who are
in the archaic habit of putting two spaces between sentences.

Personally, I could live with either technique.

It would probably be best to include the tab character along with the space
character when determining word-wrap. After all, a tab is basically a variable
width space.


@ barryii

For your new proposal of showing subsequent spaces on the new line (after two
spaces), I say, "Let's not."

We're talking about automatic word-wrap behavior here. To let someone diddle
formatting by dumping in a bunch of spaces in the middle of paragraphs is pure
trouble. Change the font, font size, margins, paper size, or just edit the
previous line, and all that manual formatting ends up as junk.

Then what do you do about the complication where the two spaces at then end of
the line are well within the text zone (not the margin). As you add spaces do
they pop down to the next line, or do they stay on the first line until you get
two in the margin?

The only time I can think of someone wanting to do something like this is if
they are trying to fake a block-quote by squeezing the margins of a paragraph.
What they *should* do is use an existing block-quote paragraph style or create a
custom paragraph style. Of course some people don't do styles (they haven't
figured them out yet). Most inexpert users can probably figure out how to select
a paragraph, grab the little margin handles, then slide the margins for that one
paragraph inward to squeeze it. For people who are too dumb for even that, they
could insert a soft-return at the end of each line, then insert their spaces or
tabs or whatever on the fresh line.

If someone wants to stick six spaces between two words in the middle of a
paragraph, let them. If those spaces happen to fall on the line such that
automatic word-wrap gets involved, then shove all those extra spaces in the
margin and start the next line with the first character of the next word. Let's
not mess around second-guessing what the user wants.