<dfn>
encloses a newly introduced term that is being explained. Use for the first
occurrence of the main concept of every manual page, or the first occurrence
-of a new concept after a sub-heading if necessary. Renders in bold face.
-Keep in mind that <dfn> tags might be used to generate an index of keywords
-- don't pollute it too much.
+of a new concept after a sub-heading if necessary. Renders in bold face. Keep
+in mind that <dfn> tags might be used to generate an index of keywords--don't
+pollute it too much.
<abbr>
is used to explain an abbreviation such as <abbr title="Linux Audio
definition when the user hovers over the word. Renders as dotted underlined
in most browsers.
On each page, use only for the first occurrence of every abbreviation. Avoid
-a redundant explanation in the text - the expansion can easily be extracted
+a redundant explanation in the text--the expansion can easily be extracted
via CSS for printing.
Use only in the text body, not in headings.
See above for usage.
<br />
+Most of the time, these should be avoided, and used very infrequently.
A line-break can sometimes be used to structure a paragraph, or to split a
longish heading. Never use spurious <br/>s at the end of paragraphs or to
control the spacing of sections. If you're unhappy with those, fix the CSS
class="mod1">N</kbd>. It will render as "Ctrl N" for you, and as "Cmd N" for
your Mac-using friend. Nice, uh?
+N.B.: If you want to have just the name of the modifier key by itself, use
+<kbd class="mod1>‌</kbd> (zero-width non-joiner).
+
For anything you want the user to type, use <kbd> as a block-level element.
See above for other <kbd> classes to denote menu items, selections, mouse
events and controller actions.
element.
Images are usually placed as block-level elements, i.e. outside of a
paragraph, unless they are no higher than one row and make sense in the text
-flow.
+flow. Aside from this exception, they should *always* be wrapped inside of a
+<p></p> block.
5. Other conventions
====================
kind of subtle inflection, use semantic markup instead.
* The hyphen is used to for compound words such as this well-advised example.
* Do not hyphenate words at line breaks.
-* For breaks in thought — such as this splendid example — use
- the long em-dash.
-* For ranges of values, use the en-dash: Monday – Friday, 0 –
- 11.
+* For breaks in thought—such as this splendid example—use
+ the long em-dash. Note that the em-dash is snugged up against the text on both
+ sides--this is the proper way to use them.
+* For ranges of values, use the en-dash: Monday–Friday, 0–11. Note
+ again, the en-dash is snugged up to its surrounding elements.
* Use a non-breaking space (" ") between a number and its unit.
+* Colons (":") always snug up to their text on the left: it is an error to add
+ space between text on the left and the colon.
5.2 Language
------------
-* The Ardour manual is written in Americal English spelling.
+* The Ardour manual is written in American English spelling.
* Use SI units with standard abbreviations. Give imperial units only as
additional information, if at all.
-* Do not use contractions like "you'll", always write full forms.
-* Do not over-use "You", write about the program, not the user.
+* Do not use contractions like "it'll", always write full forms.
+* Do not over-use "You", write about the program, not the user. Avoid it if at
+ all possible, it makes for tighter and better reading text.
+* Always write out numbers less than 11. E.g., "One or two ..." instead of
+ "1 or 2 ...".
5.3 Chapter Headline Capitalization
* If pages grow long, consider splitting them into sub-chapters at their
headings.
* Nobody needs "the next paragraph is about the following" paragraphs.
+* When creating a <p class="note">NOTE</p>, *do not* put the word NOTE into
+ the note, the styling tells the user that it is a note.
5.6. Encoding
-------------
HTML character entities instead, for example for cursor arrows: →
← ↑ ↓. Diacriticals on vowels and other special letters are
probably ok by now, so don't bother with é and friends, just type é.
+