Proposal: a subparagraph marker

[JimSmith763268]

I propose that a tag be added to indicate subparagraph division.

In some formats, like web pages, good style requires very frequent paragraph breaks in order to avoid a wall of text. (This is a very common web site design guideline.) On the other hand, in a print format, an excessive number of paragraph breaks would make the printed version of a book very long.

If there were a subparagraph marker, the publisher could decide how to interpret it—and might choose to interpret it differently for different publication media. For instance, on a computer screen they could format them as full paragraph breaks since space is not an issue. Or in a printed text they could ignore them altogether to save space. (Or any other way: the Nestle-Aland typesets subparagraph breaks with a large horizontal space, for instance.)

The regular \p tag would be maintained for (full) paragraph breaks.

I envision an empty tag like \subp for USFM or a self-closing tag like <subb/> in USX. I don't there would be a need to create additional hierarchical structure in USX files.

I'm aware that I could use a custom tag, but if it becomes an official USFM tag, then people who write the publishing software would make an effort to implement it.

[KentSpiel]

I think this could be implemented with // <optbreak> Not sure any additional markup is needed.

[JimSmith763268]

The semantics is different, though. My idea is for an optional paragraph-level break, rather than just specifying where a line break can occur. In the example in the docs, for instance, it would never be appropriate for “Jesus Heals a Man // Who Could Not Walk” to be typeset as two different paragraphs.