Re: Netscape & New HTML

>       <h1 align=center>This is a H1 heading</h1>
> 
> I presume one would also write
> 
>       <p font=10pt Helvetica with 2 pt leading>Some text</p>

No, since it is illegal SGML :-)

I find no problem in attributes/elements that provide display
independent formating hints: eg.  alignment, justification, <BR>, <HR>,
etc.  Many popular DTDs have some formatting based attributes.
However, some formatting information is not display independent: fonts,
letting, kerning, etc.  For HTML, I would not like to see this kind of
information added.

In general, I've seen SGML that does put font and other typsetting
information in the markup.  But they are usually attributes and do not
define the structure of the document by themselves.  Plus, those DTDs
are for a specific publication process and do not have to address the
many vary viewing devices of the WWW.


> I'm glad HTML will express only the logical structure of a document,
> and not be a formatting language.  If HTML were a formatting language,
> it would have to include all those nasty features that are needed to
> format real documents, and people might start asking embarrassing
> questions--like why invent a new formatting language when perfectly
> adequate ones already exist?

I've stated this myself a couple of times before.  Nothing prevents
developers of WWW clients to support other document languages
explicitly like PostScript, PDF, TeX, etc.

	--ewh

Received on Thursday, 20 October 1994 19:52:18 UTC