[John Robinson]

<p>I don't see a problem in leading paragraphs with a p-tag, like this one. I consider it akin to leading a paragraph with an indent. The reason it is not automatically performed is because sometimes HTML that is reposted from other sites has blank lines that are not paragraphs. This would screw up the formatting.

<p>But I think I can make a compromise. If the post formatter does not find any p-tags then p-tags can probably be safely inserted. But there are other considerations, I can't just go willy-nilly tossing <p> between blank lines, because in some contexts (such as within <pre>) a <p> is invalid.

<p>Will probably defer this to the next generation formatter I am currently working on (and off again for the past month.) Next version allows YouTube videos, has better link handling (pushing everything through the redirector), allows a subset of CSS style rules, and outputs compliant XHTML. It's a little more strict than the current formatter, however, breaking fancy bastardized tables-as-decorations, for example.

[NonZeroSum]

Will probably defer this to the next generation formatter I am currently working on (and off again for the past month.) Next version allows YouTube videos, has better link handling (pushing everything through the redirector), allows a subset of CSS style rules, and outputs compliant XHTML. It's a little more strict than the current formatter, however, breaking fancy bastardized tables-as-decorations, for example.

Thanks, John, I'll look forward to that in the next version.

[NormsRevenge]

Thanks! as always, FR is evolving along with the net and a world gone more than a little crazy, since 2006 especially.

More bells and whistles coming? OH Joy! (Just offering that up for a few likely to chime in for a return to FR2000 format. ;-])

[PureSolace]

As long as we can still use HTML if we choose to for formating. :) I don’t mind other tags being added at all. (Just my $0.02)