Re: Auto-Generated HTML and Authoring Tools

Ingo Macherius (Macherius@rz.tu-clausthal.de)
Fri, 31 Jan 1997 08:27:20 +0100 (MET) 

Message-Id: <199701310729.IAA10965@majestix.rz.tu-clausthal.de>
Subject: Re: Auto-Generated HTML and Authoring Tools
To: linas@fc.net
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 1997 08:27:20 +0100 (MET)
Cc: www-html@w3c.org
In-Reply-To: <32EFF3FB.5263690F@intransco.com> from "Linas Vepstas" at Jan 29, 97 07:06:29 pm
From: Ingo Macherius <Macherius@rz.tu-clausthal.de>

> Can anyone enlighten me on the latest thinking regarding the 
> interplay of auto-generated HTML and HTML authoring tools?

I finished my master thesis dealing with HTML production in an industrial
environment (Siemens AG) just today (hooray !). It discusses two approaches:
1) using WYSIWYG editors
   This should work having only <DIV><SPAN><OBJECT><A> tags in the documents
   body and adding CSS1 stylesheets (or any other formatting model for
   HTML, including frames (blech) or NS new <LAYER> model).
   The problem with today's WYSIWYG editors is the efford to be aware of
   declaritive markup. IMHO it is more realistic to look at HTML as a ordinary
   page description language with some extra schmuck. Using structural elements
   in WYSIWYG environment is doomed to fail.

2) using conforming SGML systems
   This attempt uses a very strict ISO 8879 and 10179 approach. I use
   jjc's SP and JADE, which are still limited but very promising. If Jade's
   support for HTML output improves, meaning it would integrate a driver
   using a simple formatting model as described in 1), it should just do
   fine as a univeraal HTML generator. I knitted some Perl5 code to 
   to pre- and post process SGML documents so I can use them today. I hope
   that XML will finally overcome all the hacking that is going on.

The problem with the thesis is: It's in German. Anyone still interested in
a copy is welcome.

Virtually yours,
Ingo
-- 
Ingo Macherius                  Phone : +49 5041 3053 or +49 5323 3572 
L'Aigler Platz 4                Fax   : +49 5323 4309
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