Re: Re:

kitblake@gig.nl/winhink@gate.net  wrote:

>>It would be a good idea if we could organize text into columns. 
>
>I don't think this should go into HTML. I you want to view text in multiple
>columns than instruct your browser to format it thus.
>
>Yes most browsers are broken, they should have a max line length for breaking
>paragraphs. But this is a browser issue, not a HTML issue.

In designing Web documents, I would prefer to reccomend this to the Browser
via an HTML tag. 


>>Long term:
>>I look forward to the day when we can drop the page metaphor, and have the
>>browser take over the whole screen, as do some interactive programs. Then
>>entering a site would really be entering a world.
>
>I look forward to the day when there is a lot of really useful information out
>there. But multiple coulumns seems to me to be clinging to the paper metaphor.

You have a point here. The problem is one of visual communication, since....


>The fact that computer are set up in page metaphores is interesting. I doubt
>if 
>it will change. Any large section of text is much more readable in columns. 
>We 
>HTML users need to recognize that irrefutable fact.

the page metaphor is inherited from the Xerox PARC/Mac interface, where it
was deemed important to make computers into something familiar to the user,
thus we have trash cans, desktops, folders, etc. Paper pages are also the
most common output format for computer data. But with the Web we are making
a different kind of publishing, and as it moves towards 3D worlds, it needs
a different construct. When textual information needs to be displayed, the
designer should have more options.

Received on Wednesday, 7 June 1995 06:15:24 UTC