Re: HTML Streaming

I guess this is what he was referring to, about a streaming <P> (ewww!;):

At 10:20a -0400 08/28/97, Albertfine@aol.com wrote:
 > It would be impossible for the HTML editor to calculate the size of the
 > rendered elements considering the variety of browser, setting, screen size
 > etc. The HTML editor would add general information about the content of the
 > tag. The browser would then precalculate the rendered element based on its
 > own settings, screen size etc. For example, let say you have a HTML file
 with
 > a paragraph tag. Within the paragraph tag are 200 letters and spaces. The
 > HTML editor creates an event tag that looks something like this <event
 > p=200>. The browser knows it default font setting, screen size etc. It
 > calculates the space required to display 200 letters and spaces before the
 > actual download. You would not see the scroll bar become smaller as the

You mean scroll box, don't you? (in my GUI I don't see that anyway!)

 > texts load, only the text stream across the screen. The browser is required
 > to do less because of the general description in the event tag. You have a
 > streamed paragraph :) Of course, the general description becomes more
 > complicated when you begin to do more things. Their would probably be a
 > degree of error for some tag descriptions.

And what if the style changes within the paragraph, like to a larger font?
That would throw everything off, and bring you right back to square one.

Streaming works for audio and video because the sequential data are all the
same size (amplitudes or RGB bits). With HTML you have elements of varying
sizes (fonts, bullets, images, etc.), and it can't be calculated in advance
unless everything is embedded (such as with PDF).

__________________________________________________________________________
  Walter Ian Kaye <boo_at_best*com>    Programmer - Excel, AppleScript,
          Mountain View, CA                         ProTERM, FoxPro, HTML
 http://www.natural-innovations.com/     Musician - Guitarist, Songwriter

Received on Friday, 29 August 1997 20:44:33 UTC