- From: <carifio@black-widow.mro.dec.com>
- Date: Sun, 11 Dec 94 13:01:37 -0500
- To: www-html@www0.cern.ch
> From: patrick@voyager.gate.net > It might be far too late to change, but would it be possible to redefine > (fix) the HTML lists altogether by defining a single structure <L> (list) > which may be indexed (i.e. "ordered"), bulleted, dashed, etc. and if indexed, > then with a particular type of ordinal (arabic numberal, roman numeral, > lowercase alpha, uppercase alpha, etc.). > . . . > > Comments? > Good idea. Some of the list directives always stuck me as being at the wrong level of abstraction, just as you observed. I think your proposal would simplify both authoring tools and clients. You also rightly observed that it may be too late. More generally, there appears this tension between who controls the presentation on the screen: the consumer (the browser) or the producer (the server)? Generally, the philosophy appears to be let the browser control the presentation -- and I largely agree with that. But its the producer who knows the content best and how it should best be presented (yes, this is an assumption). At times, I would like to say to my browser: do exactly as the server says; give the server as much control over the specifics of the presentation as it wants. At times I would like to say to my browser: do as I say. Given that desire, I think its easier to manipulate a smaller set of more general constructs, like <L ... options ...> <li> stuff </L> and twiddle the options, selectively delegating or retaining control over various aspects of the presentation. Another benefit might be to also let some of these constructs have a lexical scope. So for example, when nesting a list, an attribute set in the outer list will hold for the inner or contained list. This might be outside the scope of HTML. I don't have enough background to make a good judgement here. Mike Carifio Digital Equipment Co.
Received on Sunday, 11 December 1994 19:05:27 UTC