Recalcitrant web editors.

A related question .....

Is there any way that I can change the default font in either of those editors?

..... and another somewhat related question.....

Is it possible to edit one's post, thus making it unecessary to add another such as this and my previous one?

Yes, yes & yes.

I have issues with the double space thing, it was good practice to add a double space at the begining of a sentance but I don't know that it is any longer...anyone like tocomment on this.
Browsers read a series of white spaces as one space, if you must have two or more spaces you will need to enter the HTML entity   for each space required.

I'm assuming that you mean setting the default font that is displayed when a page renders, this should be done through the body tag in your style sheet. See http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp.

You can edit your post with the "edit" button, top right corner of your post.

Hi and thank you syawilim.

Yes, I have come to realise that now.
I've found out that you can also get the double space, or more, by using Ctrl+shift+space.

As far as using a double space between sentences is concerned, I doubt very much whether it is in common use now except by those who were taught how to type properly many years ago when there were typing pools, and those of us who know about it through our own interest or general knowldege.

(Hardly anything is taught properly any more.)

And my overlooking the "edit" button was a momentary excursion into stupid mode. Thank you.

By the way, I Googled a bit and found this link which lists all html entities.

I have yet to investigate the link which you gave with reference to changing the default font.

.... but I have just done so.

Yes, I suppose that is something of which I have been aware.

What I would like to do, though, is change the default font of the web editor itself. I would have thought that it would be possible through something accessible via the tool bar but a pretty thorough safari revealed nothing of the sort. A daft oversight, it seems.

In Dreamweaver, you can do CTRL-SHIFT-SPACE to insert a non-breaking space ( ). If you use this to do double spaces between sentences, only do this as the FIRST space.

If you do it for both spaces, the line will never break between the sentence. If you use if to the second space, and it does break there, you will end up with a space at the beginning of the sentence on the next line.

I have seen some other program use a something similar, some CTRL-SPACE, some SHIFT SPACE, just play aorund, try it, or all else fails, check the docs. Actually, if all else fails, when you are done, on the actual content you can do a search and replace, search the source code for a period followed by a space and replace it with a period, $nbsp; and then a space. (most places if the period wasn't at the end of sentence, if it had a space after it anyhow, shouldn't make a difference.

-Greg

You can use the text-indent css property on the p tag to indent the first line.

Doing a little research on the topic, it seems that the double space after periods is a holdover from the typewriter days. I too was taught to do this in typing class and still haven't given up the habit. Graphic designers, on the other hand, were taught to only use one space. There seems to be a raging debate about this on various forums. Lots of complicated stuff about typefaces and what is used in printing presses vs. a typewriter. Here's a good article:

http://www.wordstar.org/wswin/howto/typography.htm#ONESPACE

" Standard professional typographic practice is one space; standard typewriter practice is two spaces."

Another reference: http://www.webword.com/reports/period.html

Here's another quote I came across:

Quote: The rules for typing have changed with the increased use of computers. You no longer hit the spacebar twice to add space after periods, colons, exclamation points, question marks, etc. You never use multiple spaces to align text into columns. The spacebar on the computer is a “variable” space, meaning that the width assigned to it depends on the width of the text around it. The computer will adjust the space for you.

I can't seem to find a whole lot of argument in favour of the double space, except in cases where it is assumed as a longstanding practice.

Seems that with the better quality fonts now available in word processing and screen use, it is no longer necessary to double space after periods. As you said, it was always the practice to double space after periods. Not anymore, so it seems.