if we, e.g., ended up with an RTE that had its own integrated "view source" mode, we could end up in a nested hierarchy, where I chose rich formatting but I'm viewing/editing HTML code as part of the implementation of "rich."
Why so? Like, on Tumblr, I can compose a post in rich text mode complete with (say) italics, switch to HTML mode and find the <i> tags already there, add (say) blockquote tags around a couple paragraphs, and switch back to rich text, and the blockquotes will persist. Might be mangled some, especially if I switch back and forth several times. (no, Tumblr, I want a single blockquote containing multiple paragraphs! this is a thing you have done before! why are we breaking the blockquote up by paragraph with <div> tags??) And I don't have the first idea how any such thing would be implemented on Dreamwidth, or to what extent its implementation on Tumblr might rely on other Tumblr functionality that Dreamwidth doesn't and doesn't plan to have. But it can be done.
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Why so? Like, on Tumblr, I can compose a post in rich text mode complete with (say) italics, switch to HTML mode and find the <i> tags already there, add (say) blockquote tags around a couple paragraphs, and switch back to rich text, and the blockquotes will persist. Might be mangled some, especially if I switch back and forth several times. (no, Tumblr, I want a single blockquote containing multiple paragraphs! this is a thing you have done before! why are we breaking the blockquote up by paragraph with <div> tags??) And I don't have the first idea how any such thing would be implemented on Dreamwidth, or to what extent its implementation on Tumblr might rely on other Tumblr functionality that Dreamwidth doesn't and doesn't plan to have. But it can be done.