Disabling TinyMCE's default 'force paragraphs'

I am having the exact same issue. Did you find a solution that works?

Personally, I expect paragraphs when pressing enter and think excessive use of linkebreaks are what makes many websites (and wordprocessor documents!) very hard to style or zoom/scale the text nicely on.

But you can try this, from #313497: Allow configuration of advanced editor settings. I haven't actually tested it but I think it should work.

drupal_add_js( array(
  "wysiwyg" => array(
    "configs" => array(
      "tinymce" => array(
        "formatN" => array( // Replace N with the id num of the format TinyMCE is enabled for.
          'forced_root_block' => FALSE,
          'force_br_newlines' => TRUE,
          'force_p_newlines' => FALSE
        )
      )
    )
  )
),'setting');

Just leave out the starting/ending PHP tags and put it in your template.php file. If you have enabled TinyMCE for more than one format you can just add another formatN key to the tinymce array.

Once the issue I mentioned above is fixed, you should not need this workaround anymore.

The above code in template.php seemed to work for me. But now I'm getting a new problem: The TinyMCE editor correctly create a 'br' instead of 'p' tag, but when the Preview (and the newly created page) shows no 'br' or 'p' at all! Allt he text is on the same line...
What could it be?

I add that the input type associated to the editor is "Full HTML", so no tags should be filtered by drupal.
Also, the 'br' tags are present in DB: if I edit the page the editor still displays new lines and disabling the editor the 'br' tags are still there.
So it seems that drupal is not showing the 'br' tags in the 'view' tab only.

The problem was with the HTML filter checkbox associated with the "Full HTML" input type. Disabling it everything works fine again.

#3 : I tried this solution and it works

See #56 at #313497: Allow configuration of advanced editor settings
Or this link : http://drupal.org/node/313497#comment-2762226

Yes, this works!

Notes:
template.php file is in the themes folder. And this code is to be inserted outside of any function.
The N in FormatN is to be obtained from admin/settings/filters (in Drupal). In my case the selected Input Format is "Full HTML" which is 2nd in the list. Hence, I replaced N with 2

I pasted the following code above all the functions:-

<?php
//added on 30 Dec 2011 for tinyMCE to use instead of

drupal_add_js( array(
"wysiwyg" => array(
"configs" => array(
"tinymce" => array(
"format2" => array( // Replace N with the id num of the format TinyMCE is enabled for.
'forced_root_block' => FALSE,
'force_br_newlines' => TRUE,
'force_p_newlines' => FALSE
)
)
)
)
),'setting');
// end add

function theme166_menu_local_task($link, $active = FALSE) {
etc

We have a better way of doing this now. See wysiwyg.api.php for details.

sites/all/modules/MYMODULE/MYMODULE.info:

name = My custom module
description = Overrides some settings for TinyMCE
core = 6.x

sites/all/modules/MYMODULE/MYMODULE.module

function MYMODULE_wysiwyg_editor_settings_alter(&$settings, $context) {
  if ($context['profile']->editor == 'tinymce') {
    $settings['forced_root_block'] = FALSE;
    $settings['force_br_newlines'] = TRUE;
    $settings['force_p_newlines'] = FALSE;
  }
}

Enable the module as usual.
Now it'll work with all themes you've got installed without further modifications, even if updating Wysiwyg or TinyMCE.

thanks TwoD, exactly what I was looking for - works just fine with D7. This should be a settings option in the module

Once I get to finalizing the patch for allowing editors and plugins change the settings GUI, we can add all those settings as separate checkboxes.

solution #10 works perfectly for with D7.
Thanks TwoD.

#10 worked perfectly to prevent <p> tags from occurring around youtube embedded media, which rendered faulty with an unwanted blank line in front of it.
@TwoD, good idea to provide this in wysiwyg admin UI. Let me know if review/testing is wanted.