layouthook (was: RE: vague thought - grid tag)

Stephen Brooks:
> > ... grid, gr, gd tags, which are used specifically for gridded
> > layout.
 
Patrick Griffiths
> But surely that, and presentation in general is the job of CSS...

Yes ... and not quite.

What are <div> and <span> for?  They're basically a container
of undefined meaning, often (but not always) used just to 
anchor a style.

Compare:

<div class=layouttable>
	<div class=layoutrow>
		<div class=layoutcell>

to

<grid>
	<gr>
		<gd>

Personally, I find the grid version more meaningful, because
I won't waste time looking for a connection between the 
various subelements of a grid or gridrow.  (Both are better 
than a table, which also causes me to worry about lining up 
columns when I make additions or deletions.)

Whether this improvement is worth adding three elements,
I'm not sure.  I think it would be worth adding at least a
single <layout> or <stylehook> that explicitly carries no 
semantic meaning.  (The obvious name, <style> is already
in use for inline style of undefined syntax which happens 
to always be CSS.)

In theory, this new element could be <div>, but in practice, 
<div> is already used for "this is a section, but not important
enough to get a header".  (And the current draft supports this,
suggesting that it does represent a true structural division.)

-jJ

Received on Thursday, 4 December 2003 14:55:23 UTC