Re: 'Poetry' Element

Scott E. Preece writes:
 >  From: Steven.Pemberton@cwi.nl
 > | 
 > | <STYLE TYPE="text/css">
 > | PRE.poetry {font-family: serif}
 > | </STYLE>
 > | 
 > | <PRE CLASS=poetry>
 > | Let us go then, you and I
 > | while the night is laid out against the sky
 > | like a
 > | 					smear of mustard on an old pork pie
 > | </PRE>
 > ---
 > 
 > One interesting thing about this discussion is that we're turning up
 > interesting test cases for browsers (and for the standard's authors).

Indeed!

Here is another variant, with <B> instead of <BR>:

    <style>
    b.br        { display: block }
    b.gap1      { width: 7em }
    b.gap2      { width: 5em }
    b.whiteline { display: block; height: 1em }
    </style>

    <p>
    in Just-<b class=br></b>
    spring<b class=gap1></b>when the world is mud-<b class=br></b>
    luscious the little<b class=br></b>
    lame baloonman<b class=br></b>
    <b class=whiteline></b>
    whistles<b class=gap2>far<b class=gap2>and wee

 > 
 > I wouldn't mind the above interpretation being correct, but I'm not sure
 > the two standards taken together read unambiguously on what the result
 > would be.  One could argue that the definition of the PRE element
 > requires the spacing to be uniform, regardless of the font and the
 > correct rendering of your example would use characters from the serif
 > font, but mono-spaced.

Strictly speaking, the example doesn't use HTML 2.0... (STYLE and
CLASS are expected in HTML 3.2, for which the definition is not yet
written.)

When HTML 2.0 was created, people didn't know about style sheets. I'm
sure the specifications for all versions after 2.0 will be even more
careful to speak only about `suggested' or `typical' renderings. With
the advent of style sheets on the Web, more and more of the semantics
of HTML can be delegated.

Higher levels of CSS will take over even more of the semantics. In
DSSSL, for example, you can already specify that <P align=right>
actually means that the text is centered and in red. I think you can
even do that in Panorama's style sheets.


Bert
-- 
  Bert Bos                                ( W 3 C ) http://www.w3.org/
  http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/People/Bos/                      INRIA/W3C
  bert@w3.org                             2004 Rt des Lucioles / BP 93
  +33 93 65 77 71                 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France

Received on Wednesday, 3 July 1996 14:48:38 UTC