Re: Wish List for New Spec

On Dec 22, 11:27, Robert Hazeltine wrote:
> 
> This seems like a good time of the year to ask what would be your wish 
> list for the next generation of HTML. My list is actually quite short and 
> it does not include the like of java, etc. :-)
> 
> 1.  A reaonable means of adequately identifying a text document giving it a 
> "front page" (meta information seems to be the best canditate);
> 
> 2.  A way of expressing formula and mathematical information within HTML 
> documents;

Well, HTML 3.0 sort of has math stuff in it, though it's weak.

> 3.  Being able to present more than one alphabetic system in a single 
> document, eg Greek and English or Cyrillic and Vietnamese, etc so as to 
> make dictionaries, language exam papers, textual criticism, etc a HTML 
> reality (has no one asked for this?)

I agree with this.  I would like to see Latin-2, Latin-12, Latin-14,
and IPA alphabets added to the HTML entity list.  Perhaps special
symbols as well, such as one finds in the Zapf Dingbats font...

> 4.  Some resolution of URC.
> 
> So what do you think?

Oh, another thing.  Scrollbars, both horizontal and vertical.
And where when you release the slider, a "submit" is done...
If the user has specified that he wants such a thing...

Would be nice if double-clicking in a <select> list (when
multiple isn't present, or perhaps even if it is) that this
would be the equivalent of "submitting" the form as well...

And perhaps some sort of container, like an XmForm widget
in Motif...  at least for forms layout...

In fact, I'd just like to see style-sheets supported.  In one
application I work on, text is interspersed with annotations
about this same text.  Now, the nature of these comments is
too complicated for most browsers, but it would be useful to
be able at least to tell the browser to render passages tagged
as "example of usage" as being in font 1 (say Helvetica, or
whatever the browser is configured in), and the actual text
of the example as being in font 2 (say Times or Lucida).

This would be easy to do with style-sheets.  Without them,
you have to explicitly control stuff, with nasty hacks like
<b> and <i>...

I liked the idea of <render> in HTML 2.0, as a stop-gap until
stylesheets became available.  Only problems were (a) it didn't
allow enough control and (b) stylesheets never will be available.

Sigh.

-Philip

Received on Friday, 22 December 1995 00:44:37 UTC