Preserving white space in iframe control using style sheet="white-space:pre"

I am suing iframe control in the edit mode.


I need to preserve white space in the control.


e.g. if I put following data in the control and then save in the database,


SSDB.CLMP1SO              735837              735837               0           0
SSDB.CNCP2SO              735837              735837               0           0
SSDB.CYMP3SO              735837              735837               0           0
SSDB.CYMP4SO              735837              735837               0           0
SSDB.RCPP1SO              735837              735837               0           0


and reload in the iframe control, the extra white space between the word is removed.


I tried style="white-space:pre" but that does not seem to work.


I do not want to use <pre></pre>, as I am doing some active formatting in the control.


As suggested in the article: 


http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnie60/html/cssenhancements.asp 


Even after turning the <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN"> standard compliant mode on, iframe element does not seem to support white-space:pre style.


Please suggest.


Thanks,
Paresh
0
Paresh
12/22/2006 5:09:20 PM
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for an interesting read on PRE, i'd recommend this article: http://cheeaun.phoenity.com/weblog/2005/06/whitespace-and-generated-content.html


 


 
Mike Banavige
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Need a site code sample in a different language?  Try converting it with:  http://converter.telerik.com/
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mbanavige
12/22/2006 6:33:07 PM 
Very good read indeed - thanks. Since the trials there are not applicable to internet explorer at all, I will not be able to use them.


I know that preserving white space in the iframe control is possible in internet explorer.


I am using innovaEditor which supports that - I don't know how they achieve it. (It does not seem to be style sheet)


http://www.innovastudio.com/


I need to be able to do that in my own application.


Any suggestions?


Thx,
Paresh
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Paresh
12/22/2006 7:00:26 PM 
if the whitespace is preserved without pre or a css style, then i would suspect it is being entered as nonbreaking space entities


i.e.


&nbsp;


or


chr(160)


just a guess though...
Mike Banavige
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Need a site code sample in a different language?  Try converting it with:  http://converter.telerik.com/
0
mbanavige
12/22/2006 8:16:06 PM 
Actually my problem is - I want to preserve it.


It is not being preserved. (I know they are stored OK in the database as if I reload it in a normal textarea they are shown)


However, if I reload it in an iframe - they are lost.
Paresh
0
Paresh
12/22/2006 8:24:10 PM 
correct. when you dont use a pre tag and you havent applied some form of css to prevent it, the browser will collapse repeating whitespace characters into a single whitespace character.  this is how the browser renders spaces.


to not use css and to not use a pre tag, you would need to replace the whitespace chars with "&nbsp;" for display purposes only.


i.e. when assigning the db value to a label you could try something like:
Label1.Text = myDbValue.Replace(" ", "&nbsp;")


But when assigning that same value to a multiline textbox, you would not alter it
TextBox1.Text = myDbValue


This same technique is also used for CRLF's entered in a multiline textbox.
Label1.Text = myDbValue.Replace(Environment.Newline, "<br />")
 
Mike Banavige
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Need a site code sample in a different language?  Try converting it with:  http://converter.telerik.com/
0
mbanavige
12/23/2006 6:22:31 PM 
Mike,


Thanks for this suggestion, I will try replaced space with &nbsp; as you suggested.


Here is how I defined my iframe control with CSS to instruct it to preserve white space. But that does not seem to work.


<iframe id="xyz" style="white-space:pre">


</iframe>


I was hoping that would work.


Thx,


Paresh.
Paresh
0
Paresh
12/23/2006 9:40:00 PM 
i do not believe that the css style of an iframe actually affects the content of the document that is contained inside the iframe. I suspect this is why your style did not have the desired affect.  


Perhaps you can do the &nbsp; replacement or perhaps you can get the white-space:pre into the content you reference in the iframe.
Mike Banavige
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Need a site code sample in a different language?  Try converting it with:  http://converter.telerik.com/
0
mbanavige
12/23/2006 10:20:38 PM 
Mike,


 Thanks a bunch.


Using &nbsp; solved the issue in the applications which I designed in house.


However, I need to do the same thing in one of our third party applications too and there if I replace space with "&nbsp;" it shows up as it is with "&" replaced with some other character.


 SSDB.CNCP2SO ;�nbsp;�nbsp;�nbsp;�nbsp;�nbsp;�nbsp;�nbsp;�nbsp;�nbsp;�nbsp;�nbsp;�nbsp;�nbsp;735837�nbsp;


So, I tried replacing it with "&amp;nbsp" - but still no use, I am getting this.


SSDB.RCPP2SO&;nbsp;�amp;nbsp;�amp;nbsp;�amp;nbsp;�amp;nbsp;�amp;nbsp;�amp;nbsp;�amp;nbsp;�amp;nbsp;�amp;nbsp;�amp;nbsp;�amp;nbsp;�amp;nbsp;�amp;nbsp;735837�amp


Any idea what might be happening here?


I am using javascript to replace "space" with "&nbsp;" - like this.


document.frmNotes.txaWorkNote.value = document.frmNotes.txaWorkNote.value.replace(/ /gi,"&nbsp;");


I guess their might be some settings in the control of the third party application which does that - but not able to determine what.


Any suggestions?


Thx,


Paresh.


 


 
Paresh
0
Paresh
12/26/2006 12:17:20 AM 
I think I know the reason for the above issue.


1. If I replace space using vbscript directly on the database output like replace(fieldname, " ", "&nbsp;") - everything works fine.


2. However if I use javascript to do the same using document.frmNotes.txaWorkNote.value.replace(/ /gi,"&nbsp;"), it results in above mess.


In the application where I need to use javascript, I need to fixe this.


Can't seem to find a logical reason for the difference though.


Any suggestions?


 Thx,


Paresh.
Paresh
0
Paresh
12/26/2006 9:39:05 PM 
I guess the much cleaner solution can be:  to specify <style> body {white-space:pre} </style> for the document.


And then to make the browser compliant by specifying: 


<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd">


 Unfortunately that does not change iframe content behavior.


If iframe content is defined dynamically - is there any way to specify !DOCTYPE for the iframe element in IE?


Thanks,


Paresh.
Paresh
0
Paresh
12/28/2006 9:01:05 PM 
Mike,


 


Thanks - that was useful. Looks like I need to replace space with "&nbsp;" to achieve the behavior I am looking for.


However I have an issue:


Suppose the data is "xx                  yy                zz"


At some points in my application I can do it while loading my data back from the database on the server side.


(First it gets loaded into a textarea and then to an iframe down the line)


 e.g. replace(columnname, " ", "&nbsp;") - which works fine - no issues.


I see "xx               yy             zz" in the textarea and same thing correctly in the iframe at the later stage.


However at other places I need to use Javascript as data loaded to iframe comes from the textarea without any trip to the database.


However, if I use javascript to replace white space: like myText.replace(/ /gi, "&nbsp;")


The textarea gets populated with "xx&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;yy&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;zz"


I guess "&nbsp;" is taken as string.


How do I achieve same behavor as server side replacement of space with "&nbsp;" using javascript?


Any ideas?


Thanks,


Paresh.
Paresh
0
Paresh
12/29/2006 4:25:25 PM
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