Re: Transparency and linked objects was Re: javascript dhtml and browser variations

> This is true and immediate however a rather negative approach, please see my
> other email and consider how adding .colour to the dom (for the current
> mouse position) might enhance interactivity.

I think this is getting too far towards browser object models.  The W3C
seems to have a policy not to standardise browser object models.  That's
consistent with the long standing view that HTML is about browser independent
documents, which are capable of being presented with widely disparate 
technology.  It doesn't, of course, align with the popular view that HTML
is a multi-media language for GUIs on Windows PCs.
 
Note, even within GUI browsers, the colour in the screen buffer may not be
the same as the source colour.  E.g. for JPEG images, the image coding and
decoding process may introduce errors and dithering to the actual pallette is
likely to be done within the decode, leaving the browser without a record
of the intended 24 (or more) bit colour.

Where you are talking of transparency, it is even more difficult to get the
colour without reading the screen buffer.

Incidentally, I don't have a copy of DOM2 immediately to hand, but, whilst
it is possible that coordinates are given on events, which itself could be
considered a borderline function, I suspect there is no interface to allow
continual tracking of the cursor, as that is a function of a GUI programming
language, not a document language.

When HTML was created, it was deliberately designed to be different from
multi-media authoring and page description languages.  Unfortunately, 
there is a strong one tool mentality which means that people fail to 
use the tool for the job, but use HTML for everything.  The main advantage
it has, over fashionability, is that Microsoft bundle IE.

(The original TBL papers on HTML say that there is no place for colour in
HTML; this has to be viewed in a context in which PDF was already well
developed and there were a number of multi-media authoring tools, both
for mass market CDs and for advertising purposes.)

Received on Monday, 2 July 2001 09:13:36 UTC