Requested Change to Wilbur HTML 3.2

Currently Wilbur defines table cells as follows:

<!ATTLIST (th|td)                  -- header or data cell --
        nowrap (nowrap)  #IMPLIED  -- suppress word wrap --
        rowspan NUMBER   1         -- number of rows spanned by cell --
        colspan NUMBER   1         -- number of cols spanned by cell --
        %cell.halign;              -- horizontal alignment in cells --
        %cell.valign;              -- vertical alignment in cells --
        width   %Pixels  #IMPLIED  -- suggested cell width --
        height  %Pixels  #IMPLIED  -- suggested cell height --
        >


I would like to see this changed to:

<!ATTLIST (th|td)                  -- header or data cell --
        nowrap (nowrap)  #IMPLIED  -- suppress word wrap --
        rowspan NUMBER   1         -- number of rows spanned by cell --
        colspan NUMBER   1         -- number of cols spanned by cell --
        %cell.halign;              -- horizontal alignment in cells --
        %cell.valign;              -- vertical alignment in cells --
        width   %Length  #IMPLIED  -- suggested cell width --
        height  %Pixels  #IMPLIED  -- suggested cell height --
        >

To my knowledge both Mozilla and MSIE support table cell widths defined
as percentages.  Percentages in this case would be percent width of the
table itself.

In recent weeks on several USEnet groups and on mailing lists for the 
HTML Writers Guild I have encountered situations where users wanted to
be able to split a table into columns proportionally, not based on hard
pixel limits.

Say a row split in half no matter the content:

<TR><TD width="50%">stuff</TD><TD width="50%">stuff</TD></TR>

In my testing of Mozilla on UNIX and feedback from users using Mozilla and
MSIE on other platforms, this appears to work de facto.  However, it would
be appreciated if this were standard behavior so authors could have more
confidence in their documents.  I don't understand why percentages were not
included, as, personally, I find that more useful than pixel settings - it
handles resizing cleaner for platform independence.

PS. Where is that Working Draft on Wilbur? RSN? :-)

-MZ
--
Livingston Enterprises - Chair, Department of Interstitial Affairs
Phone: 800-458-9966 510-426-0770 FAX: 510-426-8951 megazone@livingston.com
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Received on Thursday, 5 September 1996 12:43:37 UTC