RE: XForms 1.0: My Opinions

For more CSS options, see:
http://dubinko.info/blog/2002_06_30_archive.html#78439925
<http://dubinko.info/blog/2002_06_30_archive.html#78439925> 
 
I wonder how much of this survived into CSS 2.1...
 
.micah

-----Original Message-----
From: jkeiser@netscape.com [mailto:jkeiser@netscape.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 11:21 AM
To: Dan Dennedy
Cc: www-forms@w3.org; Beth Epperson; Daniel Glazman
Subject: Re: XForms 1.0: My Opinions


You are right, CSS2 is pretty much totally unable to handle forms UI in any
sane manner.  I understand the UI group of CSS3 is handling that, though.

I am glad to hear there is some experimentation with beyond-the-spec stuff
in the nascent stages of this technology :)

--John

Dan Dennedy wrote:


It should be noted that the below comment is based upon using xhtml tables
for managed layout. However, I just learned about css property "display" and
its values table, table-caption, table-row, table-cell, etc. along with
caption-side property. Alas, Mozilla and Opera 6 handle them fairly well,
but not IE 6 at all. However, it appears Mozilla and Opera do not correctly
display "caption-side: left" which rules out using table-caption for a label
since labels are often on the left. In order to get various label placements
with tables, I currently require row/column spans, which I do not see in
CSS2. IMO, currently, neither CSS alone nor authored xhtml tables are
completely suitable for xhtml+xforms layout; I still need my layout hint
attribute on <group> and my caption-side attribute on form controls. At the
very least, these two hints make authoring much easier and expressive
without my other developers or customers complaining. 

See the ZVON CSS2 tutorial for examples: 
http://www.zvon.org/xxl/CSS2Tutorial/Examples/example42.html 

DRD> On a related note, label is layout-oriented too. Obviously, XForms
supports CSS absolute positioning, but many (most?) prefer a flowed or
managed layout. In that case, should labels always go on the left? Many form
authors prefer top or bottom. Some authors prefer right-aligned over
left-aligned esp. if one or more labels are rather long. Can all of this be
specified in CSS using "caption-style" and "text-align"? Not only is the
label