Bring Back Dummy

I think that:

<tr tal:dummy="">.....</tr>

is more obvious than:

<tr tal:replace="nothing">.....</tr>

That is, I think a dedicated tag would make dummy or example (I’d be happy with tal:example.) elements easier to spot.

Comments

peterbe (Jun 12, 2001 6:24 am; Comment #1) –

I’m just a user, but my instinctive feel is that ‘dummy’ or ‘example’ should not be implemented:

  <tr tal:replace="nothing">.....</tr>

*does* feel very natural.

n.larosa (Jun 13, 2001 4:29 am; Comment #2) –

Well, this overlaps with the Comment Directive proposal. Is tal:comment more pleasant than tal:dummy ? I hope so.

peterbe (Jul 16, 2001 3:53 am; Comment #3) –

-1

go tal:comment !

mindlace (Jul 18, 2001 2:04 pm; Comment #4) –

-1 but how about tal:replace=”structure nothing”?

n.larosa (Jul 30, 2001 8:43 am; Comment #6) –

I guess I now understand the difference between the Comment Directive and Bring Back Dummy.

A tal:comment attribute would be erased by itself, leaving the tag in place, while a tal:dummy attribute would make the whole tag disappear.

Is this correct? If so, I see the need for something dummy-like. tal:replace="nothing" is too verbose, and does not clearly express the fact that this is a comment. I would use the tal:comment in place of the tal:dummy one, though.

On the other hand, the standard HTML comment syntax leaks to the generated HTML pages, something to be avoided. And there’s no such option in XML, generally speaking.

A <span tal:comment="SQL data here"> tag would not impact the designer’s layout, while <`span tal:comment="">Jim, please no italics. Thanks.</span> would be visible.