Future of HTML

     Name        : David Richmond
     Contact     : david_richmond@nl.compuware.com
     Home Phone  : +31 20 690 1217
     Home Address: S. de Beauvoirstraat 20,
                   1102 AR Amsterdam,
                   The Netherlands
     
     Date        : 30 March 1998
     
     This is a complete replacement version of my previous submission, 
     please delete the previous submission.
     
     
     Data-Type Definition & Formatting
     =================================
     
     I would like to see a formal HTML way of defining the type of simple 
     data-types, and CSS options to format those types. The data-types 
     should at least include Date, Time, Currency and numbers (with and 
     without fractions).
     
     Others will certainly have suggestions on how to do this but I would 
     prefer a 'datatype' HTML tag attribute which could be used on many 
     HTML tags. Prime targets for its use would be the SPAN and INPUT tags. 
     So, for example:
     
        <SPAN datatype=Number>1000</SPAN>
        <SPAN datatype=DateTime>1998.03.30T09:30+0100</SPAN>
        <INPUT type=text size=10 datatype=number>
     
     The CSS definitions would then be used to define formatting:
     
        SPAN[datatype="Number"] { number-format: default }
     
     Standard and specific CSS formats would need to be defined, some of 
     which (the default?) should format based on the User Agent's default 
     Locale. Using Microsoft Excel like format strings (e.g. "#,##0.00" for 
     english language numbers) would be one option for specifying specific 
     fixed locale format descriptions.
     
     Another important item is the sign (-ve or +ve) of the number. In 
     typical english financial spreadsheet applications -ve numbers are 
     formatted in parenthesis (e.g. "-1000" is formatted as "(1,000)"), 
     and/or formatted in a highlighting colour such as red. This means a 
     CSS selector needs to be defined that can check for the sign of the 
     value, for example:
     
        *[content < 0]  { color: red }
     
     This also means that the tag 'content' (sorry, I am (ab)using the CSS2 
     usage of the term) can be modified in the CSS definition (CSS2 only 
     allows addition via the :before & :after & 'content' definition). This 
     would be required to convert "-1000" to "(1000)" (i.e. remove the 
     "-"), unless an extra HTML attribute was added for sign definition, 
     for example.
     
        <SPAN datatype=Number sign=negative>1000</SPAN>
     
     which would change the selector syntax for the associated CSS 
     definition to
     
        *[sign="negative"]      { color: red }
     
     and which would, admittedly, make the 'datatype' attribute an 
     increasingly ugly solution (maybe a <DATA type=date|...> tag would be 
     better).
     
     Of course there are related issues for other data-types, such as 'is a 
     date before XXX'. More HTML markup could then be formatted on the 
     client via CSS based on its content (e.g. all overdue order dates 
     highlighted in red).
     
     Within the DOM associated native Script data-types would be used to 
     manipulate the datatyped values.
     
     
     INPUT Validation
     ================
     
     Within <INPUT> elements the above "datatype" could be used for simple 
     input validation, where the user can type in a value in their native 
     language format but it is sent to the server in some standard format 
     (i.e. in an unformatted, raw, form).
     
     My company makes development tools, and one of our biggest problems 
     with HTML is input validation. We would love to do it on the client, 
     but insisting on downloading Java class files is verging on overkill - 
     and is not even an option if the user agent has it's Java VM switched 
     off. Checking for Browser X, Y or Z supporting A, B or C is already 
     causing enough headaches without adding more.
     
     
     CSS Aliases
     ===========
     
     This suggestion applies to those of us who write CSS by hand, as 
     opposed to via CSS editors. It would be useful to be able to define an 
     alias which can be used throughout the style-sheet, removing the need 
     to duplicate definitions. This could be done via a @alias definition, 
     for example:
     
        @alias MyClr { #FF00FF }
     
        H1  { color: MyClr )
        P   { background-color: MyClr }
     
     
     Now changing the single MyClr value changes all styles, instead of 
     having to manually modify all the styles individually.
     
     However, there are a few potential 'gotchas' in this, for example:
     
        @alias hidden { visible }
     
        H1 { visibility: hidden }
     
     As a C/C++ programmer used to '#define' definitions I would expect H1 
     tags to be visible, but of course not everyone is a C++ programmer and 
     it might be better to ignore such definitions (i.e. keywords take 
     priority over aliases).
     
     I understand that aliases can open a 'can of worms', but for writing 
     CSS sheets by hand not having the faciity is very, very frustrating. I 
     would not mind if the above was offered in a very restricted form, 
     i.e. only single values may be defined within {} brackets.

Received on Monday, 30 March 1998 13:19:07 UTC