I am using Dreamweaver C3 (I'm newbie) and had hit the wall...

I am creating the body text and I want to do this like this, using the text indent but it did not do what I WANT it to do!
1990 In Dallas, TX blah blah
blah blah blah
1991 In Seattle, WA blah blah
blah blah blah

Instead:
1990 In Dallas, TX blah blah
blah blah blah
1991 In Seattle, WA blah blah
blah blah blah

If you want to write webpages, learn HTML and don't use non-text editor tools to do it. Knowing the details makes you much better at doing what you want.

If you want help with formatting that includes spaces, then use code, html, or php tags in your post so that it's rendered properly. If you don't know how to do that and can't figure out how to use the tool in the editor, then ask and we'll help.

CSS property text-indent will only indent the first line of text. To get the whole block indented, use either margin-left or padding-left properties.

Originally Posted by JeremyMiller

If you want to write webpages, learn HTML and don't use non-text editor tools to do it. Knowing the details makes you much better at doing what you want.

If you want help with formatting that includes spaces, then use code, html, or php tags in your post so that it's rendered properly. If you don't know how to do that and can't figure out how to use the tool in the editor, then ask and we'll help.

While I agree with you regarding code being more powerful than Dreamweaver, it's worth remembering that some people may not want to spend time learning XHTML.
It's also a bit ironic that someone who's telling people to learn to code should have over 20 errors in each of the sites in their signature including tag attributes that don't even exist (alt is for images, not for links).

There's a few ways to do this.
You could wrap the text in a div or paragraph with CSS like this applied to it:

p.myindent {
  padding-left: 2em;
  padding-right: 2em;
}

There's also the block quote element, though this is best used for actual quotes, and it'll add padding around every side of the content it contains.

Funny Nuvo. All my sites work as I intend to the degree I want them to. I don't follow every xHTML specification rule and don't care if they validate, which is why you'll notice that there are no claims at validation. One complaint the validators offer is that there's no onClick attribute for anchor tags -- well, they can bite my booty as I'll use onClick either way. I'm glad you're a proponent of validation, but don't equate validation with the ability to code. Now, if the site threw a javascript error, didn't look the same in the 2 major browsers, didn't include proper closing tags, used tables for layout, had a bunch of excess garbage code frequently thrown in by WYSIWYG editors, or any of a number of other more important errors, then I'd accept your complaint.

And, I don't care if people don't want to learn to code and want to take the easy way out -- they still should or they'll have a lot more trouble getting anything done and will never truly understand what they're doing.

Oh, let me add that you have an implicit assumption which is false: being able to code, being able to even code well, doesn't imply that one knows everything about the language being coded. For example, I am pretty good at CSS, but LadyNRed shames me with how good she is and I learn a lot from her. Coding is an ongoing learning process. Now, I'll pit my PHP skills against yours or anyone else's anyday. I'll leave writing XHTML validatable code to you.

Alt is not limited to the image tag. May I also point out that just because a tag attribute might not exist within the specification, it can exist in a HTML document for use as part of your Javascript/PHP/ASP/etc framework or even be used in conjuction with CSS advanced selectors (e.g. p[myat="foo"]). Validating your mark-up is only one level of testing, and you will find that complete validation does not equate to a site that works in all browsers.

Purism vs Pragmatism.

That aside, flaming someone is not a "very clever" thing to do, especially as you're breaching Rule number 5.

Originally Posted by Mooofasa

Validating your mark-up is only one level of test, and you will find that complete validation does not equate to a site that works in all browsers.

Well said and another reason that I forgot to mention that I don't care so much about validation. I do care about form/syntax, however. It always bothered me when people wouldn't close tags that they could get away with not closing.

To the original poster: did the CSS stuff posted here help?

The moral of the story is that browsers do not recognize tabs as typed on a keyboard or more than one space, and only if typed between words.

If you're just trying to add some space in one area of your page, then you can insert nonbreaking spaces   where you need it to be. If you need it to be in more than one space then identify said areas as a class and use CSS. Both methods are standards compliant.

Using   is a good idea? I didn't know that. I'm always appalled when I see code like this:

          My Word

instead of

<div style="padding-left:10em;">My Word</div>

So long as the document isn't littered with them, it doesn't bother me. It's one way of doing it, which is why I suggested it only if done in one isolated area. While perhaps not the best method, it is still neither invalid nor deprecated, and if it's still valid and works your reaction to it is immaterial. Don't hit Ctrl+U. Shouldn't coders be aware of all the options available to them?

Dude, don't take offense. I was just commenting, not criticizing you. I had thought that it was something that people were discouraged from. I have no evidence of that and was just surprised by the mention, so I posed the question. No offense intended and please accept my apologies if you were offended.

Originally Posted by serandfae

Shouldn't coders be aware of all the options available to them?

Absolutely!

No worries. I have heard that overuse of   should be avoided, but haven't heard of discouraging the use of them altogether. I use them sparingly, but usually in a situation where something that's in a class needs to be tweaked just a little bit further without having to rename or use an inline style.

I can understand that reasoning. Before I knew of the white-space style rule, I used   where I was getting wrapping in an undesired way.

Thanks all for your advices, I'll try them later...

Well, if you're considering   why not use &tab; May I point out that he was getting at the whole paragraph being indented, so using &nbsp and &tab won't help for line over-flows and will just end up in sloppy mark-up.

Never even heard of &tab; before! lol. I try to treat   as for use only when I need a non-breaking space that's not otherwise presentable via CSS.

Originally Posted by JeremyMiller

Funny Nuvo. All my sites work as I intend to the degree I want them to. I don't follow every xHTML specification rule and don't care if they validate, which is why you'll notice that there are no claims at validation. One complaint the validators offer is that there's no onClick attribute for anchor tags -- well, they can bite my booty as I'll use onClick either way. I'm glad you're a proponent of validation, but don't equate validation with the ability to code. Now, if the site threw a javascript error, didn't look the same in the 2 major browsers, didn't include proper closing tags, used tables for layout, had a bunch of excess garbage code frequently thrown in by WYSIWYG editors, or any of a number of other more important errors, then I'd accept your complaint.

And, I don't care if people don't want to learn to code and want to take the easy way out -- they still should or they'll have a lot more trouble getting anything done and will never truly understand what they're doing.

Oh, let me add that you have an implicit assumption which is false: being able to code, being able to even code well, doesn't imply that one knows everything about the language being coded. For example, I am pretty good at CSS, but LadyNRed shames me with how good she is and I learn a lot from her. Coding is an ongoing learning process. Now, I'll pit my PHP skills against yours or anyone else's anyday. I'll leave writing XHTML validatable code to you.

I didn't intend to flame anyone.
I know the limits of valid code, and like many developers, I'd add to the standards if I could.
On the other hand, there's nothing stopping you from using a custom doctype, meaning you get the best of both worlds.
Your PHP skills will more than likely destroy mine, but I don't actually use PHP these days as I program with Ruby on Rails.
I agree that being good at programming doesn't mean knowing everything about a language.
This is especially true for web languages which change often, and which usually have you using several languages combined, but I don't remember encountering any browser that requires alt tags on links.

Using the   method will likely bump up file sizes more than CSS methods, and it'll make code harder to read in the future (this is why programming has that wonderful thing called refactoring).

Originally Posted by Nuvo

but I don't remember encountering any browser that requires alt tags on links.

True enough. I think I started doing that a number of years ago when a buddy of mine who has a disability showed me that it read those to him -- perhaps I applied it wrong then too as I was very new to web coding. Just a bad, improper habit, but it doesn't actually hurt anything but validation which is the least of my priorities and hasn't justified my going in and deleting it. On a separate note, he showed me how it read table-based layouts too. That's when I started to get away from them altogether.

but I don't remember encountering any browser that requires alt tags on links.

1/ Get the names right! alt's are NOT tags

2/ there is NO alt attribute for <a>nchor elements. The equivalent is the title attribute.
W3C QA on the alt attribute

OK. I have sinned. I hereby promise to never use alt on an anchor tag again. Please forgive me, gods of the internet.