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Status: Did Not Understand Request
Change Description: no spec change
Rationale: Is that really equivalent in all cases? I'd rather just leave it up to prose unless that really does match all cases correctly.

I think it doesn't make a difference (for Opera/WebKit) in the normal case and doesn't do what's desired inside <nobr>.

*** Bug 13098 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

(In reply to comment #1)

> Rationale: Is that really equivalent in all cases? I'd rather just leave it up
> to prose unless that really does match all cases correctly.

Though browsers are extremely buggy and uneven w.r.t. how they implement - or *whether* they implemnent <wbr>, the answer is  yes, it *is* equivalent in all cases: normal, pre, nowrap, pre-wrap and pre-line. Test page:  http://malform.no/testing/html5/nobr

The test page shows that unless the browser has a genereal bug in its CSS generated content support *or* a bug in its implementation of Zero Width Space character, then the proposed wbr{content:"\00200B"} matches reality.

Caveat: I disagree that <wbr> should have any effect inside white-space:pre and white-space:nowrap. 

(In reply to comment #0)
> Add wbr { content: "\200B"; } (ZWSP)?

+1 But you forgot two zeroes:  wbr{content:"\00200B"}

(In reply to comment #2)
> I think it doesn't make a difference (for Opera/WebKit) in the normal case

Your statement is incorrect, with regard to Opera. The proposed style (see above) does work very well with Opera. Not only does it work well in Opera: if we change the selector from wbr{} to wbr:before{}, then it also works very well in IE8. Test case for white-space:normal: http://malform.no/testing/html5/nobr#normal

> and doesn't do what's desired inside <nobr>.

Test case: http://malform.no/testing/html5/nobr#nowrap

IE-in-quirks mode, IE6, IE7, Webkit and Konqueror do *not* define the desired behavior. The desired behaviour is defined by Firefox 5, IE8, IE9 and Opera. See bug 9711 (see 5th comment).

Peter Paul Koch implemented wbr in Opera  as wbr{ content: "\00200B" }. However, he was unable to make it work in IE8: http://www.quirksmode.org/oddsandends/wbr.html

However, it turns out that one can enable it in IE8, very easily, if only one uses wbr{display:inline-block} to trigger the infamous hasLayout. Peter Paul Koch's test case, with the hasLayout trigger: http://malform.no/testing/html5/wbr-haslayout

(In reply to comment #5)

> However, it turns out that one can enable it in IE8, very easily, if only one
> uses wbr{display:inline-block} to trigger the infamous hasLayout. Peter Paul
> Koch's test case, with the hasLayout trigger:
> http://malform.no/testing/html5/wbr-haslayout

SORRY, incorrect: it does *not* trigger hasLayout. 

CORRECT INTEPRETATION: *{display:inline-block}  creates a line-break opportunity.  

Every tested browser treats an empty element with {display:inline-block} as a line-break oportunity. See my *heavily* updated test page: http://malform.no/testing/html5/nobr

Thus, instead of wbr{content:"\00200B"}, we could simply say wbr{display:inline-block}. This is far more compatible with existing web browsers, as well.

I would like extend ms2ger's proposed style,

         wbr{content:"\00200B";}  

with one more style rule:

         nobr wbr{white-space:normal}

Those two style rules are together able to replicate the <wbr> effect inside <nobr>

See new test page:  http://malform.no/testing/html5/nobr+wbr

(In reply to comment #7)

Or perhaps better, this solution:

/* Outside NOBR:  */
 wbr
     { 
          display:inline-block;
     }

/* Inside NOBR:  */
nobr wbr
      { 
          display:inline; 
          white-space:normal; 
          content:"\00200B";
     }

NOTE:  For IE7/IE6/IE Quirks-Mode, wbr{inline-block;} also works inside NOBR, but in the other browsers, wbr{inline-block} makes it **not** work in NOBR.

mass-move component to LC1

EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If you have additional information and would like the editor to reconsider, please reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest title and text for the tracker issue; or you may create a tracker issue yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document:
   http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html

Status: Rejected
Change Description: no spec change
Rationale: I see no benefit to doing this, and it's quite risky.