Re: [Fwd: My future of HTML position paper]

On Wed, 13 May 1998, Robert Miner wrote:

> 1) limited baseline alignment
> 
>    Object elements only allow TOP, MIDDLE and BOTTOM baseline
>    alignment.

Shouldn't layout be handled by style sheets?

> 2) limited communication with the ambient environment
> 
>    For math equations and many graphics (especially ones that
>    incorporate text) the renderer handling the contents of the
>    OBJECT element needs much better access to the browser
>    layout engine.  It needs to be able to query the browser for
>    the ambient fontsize and style, the background colors, whether
>    it is inline or blocklevel, etc.  Then, based on these parameters
>    it needs to negotiate for screen space.  In particular, if you
>    have to specify height and width in advance (as is required for
>    the OBJECT element) it is not possible to match textsizes in
>    graphics or equations to the surrounding content, at least not
>    without introducing gaps or clipping.

I don't follow this point.  First of all Width and Height attributes are
not required for the Object element.  Secondly I don't see why a rendering
device can't communicate with the browser.  This sounds outside the scope
of the HTML specs anyways.  If a graphical browser is going to embed
MathML in the document window (natively or by a plug-in), it should have
no problem accessing background colours, and ambient font size, and hence
render the Object in an appropreate manner.  If the browser launches an
external program to view the object, then getting the background and font
size is no relevent. 
 
> 3) poor support for printing
> 
>    This is really a special case of 2, but so important it bears
>    separate mention.

This seems like a special case of 1.  Layout should be handled by style
sheets in general.

Cheers.

-- 
Russell O'Connor                           roconnor@uwaterloo.ca
    <URL:http://www.undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca/%7Eroconnor/>
``And truth irreversibly destroys the meaning of its own message''
-- Anindita Dutta, ``The Paradox of Truth, the Truth of Entropy''

Received on Wednesday, 13 May 1998 14:03:26 UTC