Re: measurements

Cameron Hart <cameron@bitshifter.co.uk> wrote:

> I'm wondering why there is no specification in the DOM for [offset*].
> Is it an oversight, or out of the scope of the DOM[...]?

Yes, IMO it's out of scope.

DOM concerns itself only with the document, not a current rendering of
it. Even when you set an HTML element's position with the likes of
"x.style.top= '20px'", you're only simulating adding the inline style
"top: 20px" to the document, not directly telling the browser to
place the element.

It's a problem for web authoring: there's a *big* standards hole
between ECMAScript and the DOM. ECMA defines the standard built-in
language objects and DOM the standard document-related objects,
but everything else (window, screen, navigator, etc., as well
as offset* and the "DOM Level 0" form interaction model) remains
unstandardised, documented only at MS and Netscape's proprietary
references.

It's not very glamourous from a forward-looking point-of-view, but
I believe it'd help a lot of people if this area were standardised.

-- 
Andrew Clover
Technical Consultant
1VALUE.com AG

Received on Tuesday, 30 January 2001 06:00:48 UTC