- From: Wingnut <wingnut@winternet.com>
- Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 09:37:40 -0600
- To: www-html@w3.org
On 12/25/2002, Croll wrote... > Once again, if the WG is addressing the issue with > <hr /> (whether to leave it or not) could you explain > the role of this element and other presentational > stuff like <sub> and <sup>? Thank you, Croll. You have again pointed out how certain specs are messing with the CONTENT of BODY and other container/block-class elements. When we start fiddling with the CONTENT of a body element, we can go to all sorts of extremes. One, is changing the order of elements IN the BODY element. Isn't ORDER OF ELEMENTS a presentational style? Yes. Should a document author have the right to firmly set the order of elements in a BODY no matter what palmtop styler tries to override the preferred style? Yes. Should an author have the right to put a horizontal rule as one of the 'order of elements' (content) in a BODY element? Yes. Should that be deemed as mixing content and presentation? Yes-No. :) BODY almost needs a prefs param, or maybe we need a prefs element in the HEAD. Keep in mind that we also have VERTICAL rules to deal with too, as CONTENT in a web author's preferred order of elements in a BODY element. A PREFS tag might have content that describes the preferred BASIC PRESENTATIONAL STYLE of a document. A PREFS tag would describe... a TREE structure in a way. And therein lies the problem. XSL'ers have dreams of massaging the life force out of dom trees once they're parsed into existence from a document. They think they are going transcluding (look it up) and making their own web pages from pieces of others. And this is where the author should have some say as to what another does to hack-up the author's preferred document layout and WHOLE content. Do you think the author of Whistler's Mother would want to know, and/or have kyboshing rights... if some xsl-crazy transcludian wants to display the empty rocking chair instead of the full painting in its proper context and order? YES! You bet, Croll. You've got this sitution well-pointed-out, and you're only pointing out the tip of the iceberg. Also... BOX is as presentational or non-presentational as HR... so lets include or disclude that too. What does 'BOX' do? It 'positions' two vertical rules and two horizontal rules in such a way as to RULE-UP some content. One can't use the BOX MODEL stuff in CSS, because that's not parallel in a content/presentation-wise thinking... to HR and VR. Likely some browser-in-a-coffeemaker will try to style it itself... and mess with my BODY element's content. Hey, I was tickled a bit as I loosely used the word 'position' up there. Is there indeed some very glaring barriers between 'positioning' and 'styling'? As hypertext has been divided into content and style, maybe so should CSS be divided into 'positioning' (contexting) and 'styling'? Wingnut Occassionally spammy lurking topic wanderer.
Received on Friday, 27 December 2002 10:41:18 UTC