Re: Important: Issues relating to checkpoint 2.1 raised during 30 March teleconference.

From: Ian Jacobs:
> Issue 3: What does "content" mean?
> 
>   There seemed to be disagreement about the definition
>   of "content" in the Proposed Recommendation:
> 
>       "In this document, content means the document source,
>       including its elements, attributes, comments, and other
>       features defined by a markup language specification such as
>       HTML 4.01 or an XML application. Refer also
>       to the definitions of rendered content and equivalent
>       alternatives for content."
> 
>   This is distinguished from rendered content, whose
>   definition begins:
> 
>       "Rendered content is the part of content that is
>       rendered after the application of style sheets,
>       transformations, user agent settings, etc."
> 
>   In fact, the situation is even more complicated than
>   that. There seem to be more than two "layers":
> 
>    - There is document source, which includes associated
>      style sheets, external content such as images,
>      and probably information communicated in HTTP headers.
> 
>    - There is the document tree, which may include
>      content generated by scripts and transformations.
>      What about content generated or suppressed due
>      to user preferences (e.g., use "abbr" for table
>      cell headers instead of TH content)?
> 
>    - There is the rendered content, which is what actually
>      gets presented to the user. In CSS, content generated
>      by style sheets is considered part of rendered content.
>      However, will DOM 3 include this as part of the DOM
>      tree? (I don't know enough about DOM 3 plans to
>      know this.)
> 
>      I think "rendered content" is supposed to be "what the
>      user gets", which is how I heard some people using
>      "content" yesterday.
> 
>   Hans refers to these three levels in his email of 31
>   March [6].
> 
>   I invite people to suggest ideas for clarifying the various
>   states of content from source to DOM to viewport.

DOM Level 1 and 2 address the second layer : the document tree. This is
the DOM Level Core. The content generated or suppressed is, from your point
of view, part of the third layer.
DOM Level 2 address some parts of the first layer : associated Cascading style
sheets
(with DOM Level 2 CSS). DOM Level 2 HTML gives access to the content of sub
document
in objects and frames only if the sub document is XML or HTML. You don't have
access to the
content of images or HTTP Headers.
DOM Level 3 will address the third layer: the rendered content. We call "Views
and Formatting" this 
future module (see [1]):
 "The abstract structure and value of the document content is modelled by the DOM
core. The physical characteristics and state of the presentation will be modelled
by the views and formatting module. 


Philippe.

[1]
http://www.w3.org/DOM/Group/drafts/2000/WD-DOM-Level-3-20000318/views-and-formatting.html

Received on Friday, 31 March 2000 14:01:58 UTC