On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 12:16 AM, Martin Marinschek
<mmarinschek@apache.org> wrote:
> The whitespace problem is a spec issue if we choose to solve it by
> specifying in the component configuration whether whitespace should be
> skipped or treated as a component. For instance, when whitespace is between
> links inside of a paragraph tag, it should be preserved. However, when it is
> between links inside of an <h:panelGrid>, it should not be preserved. That
> needs to be controlled by the UIPanelGrid component (possibly).
Wow, that sounds like a fairly complex case-distinction you want to
build in the very last minute. The other issues which have been
deferred seem a lot easier to build for me.
I should have clarified, if we decide it is a spec issue, then no it cannot be in JSF 2.0. I was just emphasizing that it could very well be a spec issue (and Ryan suggested to me that such an idea should be debated).
> I'm fine to defer, but mark my word, the community is going to perceive the
> lingering of this issue as sloopy.
Honestly, I didn't even consciously know this was an issue. After
rethinking, I realize now that I do had the feeling once that Facelets
swallows some whitespace, but that only hit me in one single location
in a large app - and all I needed to do was add an <h:outputText/> at
this location. Furthermore, no one in the community ever brought this
up to me. And I receive a lot of feedback from the community.
Our experiences just differ. I'm very surprised it doesn't come up for you more often. If you have two links next to each other (such as outputLink, commandLink, or Seam link) then there is no space between them, so it looks like one word.
The more I think about it, the more I think this really could be solved in the Facelets parser. The only component that needs to skip whitespace (in the core set) is the PanelGrid...because every component becomes a column and the parent isn't looking for a specific child (like with dataTable looking for columns).
So IMHO, calling the EG "sloppy" for not working around a Facelets-Bug
(if it even is a bug, cause you are correctly saying that in some
cases it is ok that it swallows the whitespace) is somewhat too much
for me.
I'm not saying the EG is sloppy. I'm saying that people will perceive JSF (perhaps just implementation) as being sloppy for requiring hacks for basic tasks...like putting two links side-by-side in a Facelets page. And people will say that because so far, this is the stuff that JSF gets beat up on. So let's put our most polised foot forward this time.
-Dan