Re: Draft HTML 3.0 DTD

I've got a bunch of comments:

o I'd like to put in a bid for disallowing nested tables, and I also question
  the need for vertical alignment in a table cell. Yeah, you can probably think
  of cases where someone could use them, but are they really all that useful?

  I'll be perfectly honest and admit that my main concern here is the
  complexity of implementing these features in a browser. Implementing tables
  according to to the HTML+ specification was enough of a headache, having to
  handle vertical alignment and nested tables would be an order of magnitude
  more difficult. What ever happened to Keep It Simple?

  I also would question whether COLSPEC is truly desirable. What should be
  done in the case where the cell contents are too large for the width
  specified by COLSPEC? The browser may have already started drawing the table,
  so now what should it do? Either way, it's going to look ugly. This problem
  does not arise when using explicit widths on individual TD or TH cells, since
  the browser can figure out that the WIDTH value is too small and adjust it
  upward during the pre-scan stage. If the browser has to scan the table anyway
  to avoid such problems with COLSPEC, then the value of COLSPEC takes a
  nosedive.

o Since FN has been revealed to be a footnote element, is it semantically the
  same as the HTML+ FOOTNOTE element, or is it different?

o What is the need that is being addressed by the POSITION attribute on the
  BODY element? I can see how ALIGN would be useful for specifying default
  horizontal alignment in a body section, but what is this business about
  attaching it to one side of the window?

o I'd suggest that perhaps DINGBAT might be a better attribute name than
  BULLET, since the meaning of "bullet" is "a small ball" whereas "dingbat" is
  a printer's term for funny characters such as those used to mark items in a
  list.

o I take it that the BLEEDLEFT and BLEEDRIGHT alignment values on the FIG
  element have been superceded by the CLEAR attribute?

o So, when a FIG has ALIGN=CENTER the browser automatically positions
  subsequent elements down past the FIG?

o What does ALIGN=JUSTIFY do?

Michael Johnson
Relay Technology, Inc.

Received on Wednesday, 30 November 1994 20:53:35 UTC