Re: Navigation Lists

Alright Anne van Kesteren, If you think that navigation lists should be 
designed using xml and css alone, and that the list items do not need a 
dedicated containing block, then do it. Prove me wrong with actual 
working code.

I have attached an xml and a css file to this email. They contain an 
aborted attempt to make a navigation list using the structure in the 
current XHTML 2.0 working draft and an alternate, moderately sucessful, 
example of a menu where the menu-items have a dedicated containing 
block. Aside from their names, that is the only difference. The only 
real drawback of the second example is that it can not support lines of 
arbitrary length without manual modification of the css. This could be 
accomplished with scripting. However, since you think that css is all 
you should need I left it at that. If CSS supported some mechanism to 
evaluate mathematical expressions or some special selectors and rules 
for navigation lists, then I could agree with you that CSS is all you 
should need. That may be a fringe case like xframes and xforms, but I do 
believe that such things need to be addressed.


As for XBL and such, I wouldn't hold your breath. Microsoft presented an 
XML based binding language years ago as part of its behaviors proposal. 
I would like to see a standardized binding language, but I am highly 
doubtful that the w3c shall come out with a working draft on one anytime 
soon. Furthermore, such languages do provide a security risk whereas 
user agents with a default binding or widget can be tested for security.

In any case, I look forward to your response.

NOTE: I wasn't using the Microsoft link to use that site's menus as an 
example, the link got broken in the email and should refer to an article 
on menus in the Windows operating system.