Re: HTML Streaming

Steve Cheng (steve@elmert.ipoline.com) wrote:

>I don't think it is very useful to just organize tags. How about SGML
>comments? Or a list, e.g.:

I am currently working on the call tag that would allow the addition of
streamable comments.

>(The end-tag of the first LI element is inferred by the beginning of another
>LI element, yet the second LI has an explicit end-tag.)

The HTML editor would not do this.

>But awkward (IMO) tags must be used in place of the fine table model in HTML
>4.0...

I think it works well considering the issues of backwards compatibility in
4.0 http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-html40-970708/appendix/changes.html#h-13.1.2

>How about paragraphs, lists, etc. Does the "HTML editor" have to
>"precalculate" (more like wildly guessing) the size of rendered elements?
>This is impossible because various UAs render elements differently.

It would be impossible for the HTML editor to calculate the size of the 
rendered elements considering the variety of browser, setting, screen size 
etc. The HTML editor would add general information about the content of the 
tag. The browser would then precalculate the rendered element based on its 
own settings, screen size etc. For example, let say you have a HTML file with
a paragraph tag. Within the paragraph tag are 200 letters and spaces. The 
HTML editor creates an event tag that looks something like this <event 
p=200>. The browser knows it default font setting, screen size etc. It 
calculates the space required to display 200 letters and spaces before the 
actual download. You would not see the scroll bar become smaller as the 
texts load, only the text stream across the screen. The browser is required 
to do less because of the general description in the event tag. You have a
streamed paragraph :) Of course, the general description becomes more 
complicated when you begin to do more things. Their would probably be a 
degree of error for some tag descriptions.

Albert Fine

Received on Thursday, 28 August 1997 10:20:42 UTC