Re: General comments on style sheets and WAI FP work

On Mon, 10 Nov 1997, Hakon Lie wrote:

> This has been true in the past; CSS is intended for documents where
> tree transformations are not required. However, another recent
> submission to W3C builds on CSS to provide "Simple Tree Transformation
> Sheets".
> 
> [2] http://www.w3.org/Submission/1997/16/
> 

Last week, I reviewed this submission briefly. Although it allows HTML
elements to be renamed and class values to be added, I did not find any
mention of properties that would permit defined sections of HTML documents
to be moved to other locations within the hierarchical structure. For the
purposes of accessibility, it is important to be able to move such
components as navigation bars, tables, etc., to different points within
the text. For example:

<div class="navbar"> [...] </div>
could be the definition of a navigation bar which appears near the
beginning of the page. Speech synthesizer users might prefer it to be
presented at the end of the document, after the main text. The WAI
guidelines would define a set of standard class names for navigation bars
and other commonly occurring components of HTML documents, which could
then be used by a tree transformation style sheet to manipulate the
reading order of the text.

The ultimate question will be whether CSS is likely to support such
functionality or whether XSL or DSSSL should be used instead. In any case,
if XSL proceeds, it will need to be reviewed by the Formats and Protocols
Working Group.

Received on Monday, 10 November 1997 18:05:44 UTC