Re: [CSS21] Please endorse xml:id

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Laurens Holst" <lholst@students.cs.uu.nl>
To: "Andrew Fedoniouk" <news@terrainformatica.com>
Cc: "Matthew Raymond" <mattraymond@earthlink.net>; "www-style" 
<www-style@w3.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2005 11:20 AM
Subject: Re: [CSS21] Please endorse xml:id


|
| Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:
|
| >| > "A user agent that supports XHTML [XHTML], but not HTML (as listed in
| >the
| >| >  previous sentence) [,] is not considered [as] an HTML user agent for
| >the
| >| > purpose of conformance with this specification."
| >| >
| >| > Correct me if I am wrong.
| >|
| >|    I agree with the comma, but not the "as".
| >
| >Thanks.
| >
| >I understand this statement as:
| >
| >1) Only pure HTML UA is considered for purpose of conformance with this
| >specification.
| >2) Pure XHTML/CSS UA cannot be considered as "interoperable 
implementation".
| >
| >
| No, it says that a user agent that DOES support XHTML but NOT HTML (thus
| being an XML-only UA, excluding most current browsers) will not be
| considered an ‘HTML user agent’. Therefore, it does not have to conform
| to the HTML-specific rules that are in the CSS specifications.
|
| That’s how I understand it, and that’s how it seems it was intended.
| Also, you are taking this out of context, the sentence before says "An
| HTML user agent is one that supports the HTML 2.x, HTML 3.x, or HTML 4.x
| specifications". This example elaborating on that line merely serves to
| illustrate that even though XHTML 1.0 builds upon HTML 4.x, it by itself
| does not mean the UA is an HTML one (because it is an XML language and
| not an HTML one, but more importantly, because it is not in the
| aforementioned list).
|
| >Does it mean that CSS contain constructions which can be demonstarted
| >only in HTML and not in XHTML?
| >
| If by that you mean that there are specific rules for HTML UAs, then
| yes. CSS behaves differently in XHTML, e.g. on the body element. However
| if an UA is not an HTML one, those rules do not apply and they do not
| have to be implemented, so they do not ‘lock in’ the CSS specification
| to HTML.
|
| As for the CR exit condition that there need be two complete
| implementations, the differences between an HTML and non-HTML
| implementation are so small that they can not be considered to prevent a
| non-HTML user agent of being considered a ‘complete’ implementation.
| Note that even if it would, the meaning of ‘complete’ does not equal
| ‘conformant’.
|

To be short:

CSS 2.1 specification knows about, relies on and dependent of
( defined in context of ) HTML and XHTML languages.
All other languages can use CSS 2.1 but exact behavior of
CSS 2.1 is not defined for such languages.

To exit CR phase it should be at least two UA implementing:
1) Either HTML 2.0 or HTML 3.2 or HTML 4.0 specification in full and
2) CSS 2.1 specification in full.

This makes perfect sense for me personally.
I just don't understand why XHTML is excluded from the set of
"CSS conformant languages".

Andrew Fedoniouk.
http://terrainformatiica.com

Received on Monday, 27 June 2005 02:50:45 UTC