RE: Header, Footer, and Sidebars

On Friday, November 28, 1997 7:59 PM, Liam Quinn [SMTP:liam@htmlhelp.com] 
wrote:
> What happens if the author does not want styles inherited into an 
included
> HTML document?  If OBJECT allowed styles to inherit, there would be no 
way
> for an author to specify that the styles should not inherit.

Fair enough.  Then I suggest there should be a way to change that in the 
<OBJECT> tag.  Perhaps the next release of HTML should include the a 
property, like the following:
	<OBJECT INHERIT="style">
where the default value is "none", maintaining a backwards compatibility 
with the current standard.  This could also be extended to provide a list 
of inherited properties, such as "target".  Any stylesheets or base targets 
found in the included document override those inherited values.

> For this
> reason, I think we should maintain the distinction between OBJECT and
> server-side includes.  OBJECT embeds completely independent documents
> while server-side includes embed portions of documents that are (mostly)
> dependent on their "parent" for determining the base URL and style.

There are several reasons why we shouldn't be relying on server-side 
includes.  First off, there may not always be a server.  HTML should be 
designed so a site can work from disk, just as well as is could work from a 
web server.  And it should be just as easy to maintain.

Secondly, the major reason authors don't utilize SSI's is because they 
aren't consistent between different servers.  It is a big advantage to know 
your site can be copied between systems as still work perfectly because it 
doesn't rely on the server in that way.

On Friday, November 28, 1997 8:22 PM, gordon [SMTP:gordon@gly.fsu.edu] 
wrote:
> That's not such a bad thing. It's easy enough to include the same style
> sheet, and just as easy for the included document to stand out with its 
own
> style.

The problem here is that style is location dependent.  Therefore a <OBJECT> 
tag within <H1> block would have a very different appearance than an object 
tag within a <P> tag.

On Saturday, November 29, 1997 9:53 AM, Liam Quinn [SMTP:liam@htmlhelp.com] 
wrote:
> But then you have an extra trip to the server, and an extra download for
> the client.

This should only be once for the whole site for an included document, such 
as an navigational aid.  This isn't a

And the biggest reason I would like to see style explicitly inherited is to 
provide a mechanism to inherit the current typeface (and other attributes 
into objects other than just HTML.  The use of CSS is being discussed for 
SMIL on the www-multimedia list.  Inheritance should be an issue. And I 
would really like to inherit the current font into my Java applets when I 
make custom controls as well, so I don't need to explicitly change that too 
and I can assume the font is readable!

Andrew n marshall
  student - artist - programmer
    http://www.media-electronica.com/anm-bin/anm
      "Everyone a mentor,  Everyone a pupil"

Received on Sunday, 30 November 1997 09:43:32 UTC