People,

I have carefully read the whole thread about changing code, but did
not contribute, being too busy on forthcoming v1.0PR.

The reason why Nvu modifies a little bit the code is INTRINSICLY linked
to XML parsing rules. So please understand that the problem exists
BECAUSE Nvu is a conformant editor that cares about the standards. Other
famous editors - I won't name them here - are not based on an XML parser.

1. imagine you are typing, in the Normal View, ten long paragraphs of text.
   Those ten paragraphs do not contain <br> elements. The only line breaks
   are created by the paragraph's default style itself.
   So the WHOLE markup for those paragraphs is NOT broken into lines and if
   you don't include some sort of "intelligent" line breaking, the whole
   markup WILL STAND ON ONE LINE ONLY!!!
   Question1 : who wants that?
   Answer1   : nobody, trust me, nobody...
   Question2 : what should Nvu do?
   Answer2   : insert line breaks in the markup.

2. you open with Nvu a document you made by hand. I mean you wrote it in
   a text editor caring about indentation, whitespaces, hyphenation and line
   breaks. Obviously, you're some sort of a geek. Oh possibly a not-so-geeky
   geek, but still. Compared to the vast majority of Nvu users, you **can**
   switch to the Source View and understand its contents.
   Obviously too, you don't want your indentation and line breaks to be
   modified. This is important to you because you WILL switch back at some
   point to the Source View or a text editor and you want the document to
   have your usual coding style.
   Question1 : how does it fit in the model of item 1?
   Answer1   : that's simple, it does not fit at all
   Question2 : wait, could we have a mode "reformat" for item 1's problem and
               a mode "never touch" for our need here?
   Answer2   : so in that "never touch" mode, and if you type the 10 paragraphs
               described above, you'll end up with a suppppppeeeeerrr-loooooong
               line. I can bet a box of cookies, you're going to complain about
               that too!
   Question3 : but you could do that long line and add a "wrap lines" checkbox
               option in the Source View but not in the serializer for Save?
   Answer3   : that is __very__ hard, because the Source View is based on the
               serializer too. Basically, when you switch to Source or Save the
               document, the process is the same. Only the final output
               location differs, a widget or a file.

I hope you all see the problem is INCREDIBLY complex. I hope you all also see
that I **do** care about the problem. I also find painful to have my markup
modified, but I also find TERRIBLE to create new paragraphs that are not
wrapped.
Please be patient. Nvu only reaches a 1.0 status, and you're expecting the
quality of Dreamweaver MX. I perfectly remember Dreamweaver 1. Let me tell
you, Nvu is better. MUCH better. Its Site Manager is a bit weaker, but its
rendering engine, its CSS support, its extensibility already go FAR BEYOND
what gave DW1.
For the first time, Linux and Mac users get a really **free** open-source
Wysiwyg editor. People who should not have to learn the markup language
can put their hands on a POWERFUL and SIMPLE tool to make their web page,
and it doesn't cost a penny. Let me please THOSE people first, because THEY
need it. Geeks can hard-code. The others can't.

We're _that_ close to satisfy the beginners. After that, we'll try to please
the geeks with an acceptable compromise, if we can  :-) 

Thanks,

</Daniel>