- From: Dmitry Turin <html60@narod.ru>
 - Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 08:36:29 +0400
 - To: public-html@w3.org
 
Good day, James and Mike.
Excise me for a long break
(i was in territory, which has no electric communication).
JE> If <table> were
JE> actually used **solely** for the presentation of tabular (arrays of)  
JE> data, I would agree with Dimitry. Since it is also (and mostly) used  
JE> for the presentation of web pages, it is a problem.
You think about, what is <table>, used for make-up, with my @presentation ?
I don't know too :)
This way has no sense, i don't see necessity to discuss it.
MB> You'll need to clearly define rules for what happens if you mix your
MB> new "graph" values with the rest of CSS, which focuses on the box model:
MB> <table style="display:piegraph">
MB>    <tr style="display:block">What happens here?</tr>
MB>    <div style="float:left">Or here?</div>
MB>    <ns:foo style="position:absolute">Or here?</ns:foo>
MB>    <span style="display:piegraph">Or even here?</span>
MB> </table>
This is not actually, how table will looks, if anybody mix @presentation
(i think, it's necessary to change @presentation by property 'presentation')
with properties, un-suitable for 'presentation',
It's enough to detect (by external view of table), that mistake is made.
MB> doesn't clash with or complicate existing
MB> codebases
+
MB> You'll need to clearly define rules for what happens if you mix your  
MB> new "graph" values with the rest of CSS
These particular cases (not often cases) can be developed later.
---
JE> To attempt to use <table> both for LAYOUT and for tabular DATA  
JE> conflicts
If table cells contain only text string
(i.e. does not contain html-elements), then
<table>
  <a a1= a2= a3= >
  <a a1= a2= a3= >
  <a a1= a2= a3= >
</table>
__is more suitable, than <tr> and <td>__.
If table cells contain html-elements,
than this is __not table in general__ - this is case of LAYOUT.
JE> If there were an html tag which really was just for tables of data,
JE> many things would be possible. The data could automatically be  
JE> displayed just the way a spreadsheet would display it, including  
JE> adding commas and dollar (monetary) signs to money values, aligning  
JE> right for numbers and left for text
+1
JE> it would make sense to consider different chart styles and
JE> how to display the data in forms other than just rows and columns. It
JE> would no longer be necessary to add '@chart' or '@presentation'  
JE> because it would be obvious that it was just a different style, and  
JE> we already have 'style= ...' and 'style { ... }' to handle different  
JE> ways of presenting information on web pages.
To change @presentation by property 'presentation' ?
or anything else ?
---
MB> Areas I expect you'll need to cover are 3D rotation of graphs,
MB> extensions of slices from pies, position of text labels or markers on
MB> slices of pies, position, shape, size and style of call-outs to those
MB> labels... and PieGraphs are the easy ones. You've got bars, scatter  
MB> plots, line graphs, box-whisker charts, combinations of all of the  
MB> above against regular axes, logarithmic axes, axes with gaps, axes  
MB> displaying text or dates or floating point or fractions or every  
MB> third day of the month.
It's possible to make that by CSS, isn't it?
P.S.
Not all particular cases are necessary:
simple use cases should be done in simple way (e.g. by @presentation),
sophisticated use cases should be done in sophisticated way
(other methods, mentioned in previous letters).
MB> Then, of course, you'll need to persuade developers to set aside
MB> their time and resources to actually *implement* your idea. This  
MB> means a clear use-case
Yes! I intend my tool especially for simple use cases -
for use cases, which are used more often.
MB> it's clearly  
MB> defined, limited in scope
Yes, especially for that.
>> MB> this should be done ... not overriding tables
>> You think, this is non-table ? You are wrong.
>> This is __other presentation__ of table.
>>
>>                 QUANTITY OF ROWS
>>                   1-3      4-...
>> PRESENTATION
>> numerical          +        +
>> chart              +        -
>>
>>   "Plus"-es mean,
>> that three rows can be displayed both as numbers and as chart.
>> "Minus" means,
>> that it's impossible to display four (and above) rows,
>> because we can't draw 4D-space.
>>   I think to change @chart to @presentation with "numeric" as  
>> default value.
>> <table presentation="numeric / pie / etc">
>>
>> PNA> Why not "simply" create an XHTML type of <chart> that has a
>> PNA> <chart_datapoint> member or something like that?
>> MB> bet way to handle this is to use XHTML
>> MB>     <body>
>> MB>      <chartns:piechart>
>> MB>       <chartns:data key="this" value="123"/>
>> MB>       <chartns:data key="that" value="456"/>
>> MB>      </chartns:piechart>
>> MB>     <body>
>> (1) Recall about razor of Occam: don't enter entity without needs.
>> (2) Because your way is __more__ (comparison characteristic) difficult
>> for applied specialists (biologists, technologists, etc). For  
>> simple man.
>>
>> MB> A table is for tables, not charts.
>> PNA> it was not intended to be
>> Orthodox-ness. No more.
Dmitry Turin
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Received on Monday, 27 August 2007 04:36:49 UTC