Re: Anchoring text to bottom of page

Thank you, David, for your observations,

At 2002-07-30 00:37 +0500, David Tolpin wrote:
> > Remember that XSL-FO is a layout language and if there is a layout
> > construct giving you what you want, then ignore what the name of the
> > construct is and use it to do what you need.
>
>It would be really nice if it were so.  It is not, unfortunately. XSL FO
>is a mix of lower-level layout elements, presentation elements which have
>more or less fixed layout role, as well as of higher-level elements describing
>a document's structure.

Yes, but when there isn't a conflict I personally have no qualms using what 
gives me the end result.

>While your advice is absolutely right for tables or lists -- data put in 
>tables
>is not necessary tabular data -- it is less safe to use footnotes for 
>positioning
>signatures and disclaimers, unless the signatures and disclaimers ARE 
>footnotes
>indeed.

I agree that if the user also has footnotes, this technique can have some 
ambiguity (but in both cases I believe it has only been on the last page).

>An alternative approach would be to omit the notion of footnote completely 
>and introduce
>'bottom-floats' along with 'top-' and 'side-' floats.

Oh, I totally agree, but without such a distinction in XSL-FO 1.0, a 
document without footnotes can use footnotes as bottom-floats.

>table-caption, footnote, title are structural elements. They should be 
>used in accordance
>with their meaning;

I'm not yet swayed ...

>a somewhat exaggerated example of importance of such use is a speech-based
>XSL FO browser; it would interpret this elements according to their 
>intended roles and would be
>confused.

Ah ... good point.

>While an XSL FO reader is mostly a theoretical issue, an XSL FO browser 
>for PDAs
>or other special devices may interpret these constructs in a semantically 
>reasonable but
>rather unexpected way.

Granted.

>Besides that, use of footnote as a bottom-float breaks extensibility and 
>forward-compatibility:
>unexpected effects can eventually be discovered when bottom-floats are 
>indeed included in the language.

No doubt, but I was assuming the user doesn't need footnotes.

> > If you had meant the bottom of every page, check the use of static-content
> > for a footer.

This comment addressed an ambiguity in the poster's question regarding 
confusion I had about which pages he was talking about.

>Isn't specifying a different page-master for the last page and static content
>just for that page  a better solution?

I discounted that approach because of the fixed extent of the region-after.

As with many posts to these lists where users who don't know the 
capabilities don't know how many of their requirements to reveal in their 
questions, I was trying to propose a solution that handles an arbitrary 
amount of content to be dropped to the bottom of the last page.

Thanks, David, for bringing these issues to light!

............. Ken


--
Upcoming hands-on in-depth 3-days XSLT/XPath and/or 2-days XSL-FO:
-                               North America:  Sep 30-Oct  4,2002
-                               Japan:          Oct  7-Oct 11,2002

G. Ken Holman                 mailto:gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com
Crane Softwrights Ltd.          http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/f/
Box 266, Kars, Ontario CANADA K0A-2E0  +1(613)489-0999 (Fax:-0995)
ISBN 0-13-065196-6                       Definitive XSLT and XPath
ISBN 1-894049-08-X   Practical Transformation Using XSLT and XPath
ISBN 1-894049-07-1                Practical Formatting Using XSLFO
XSL/XML/DSSSL/SGML/OmniMark services, books (electronic, printed),
articles, training (instructor-live,Internet-live,web/CD,licensed)
Next public training:           2002-08-05,26,27,09-30,10-03,07,10

Received on Monday, 29 July 2002 15:58:55 UTC