Re: tables in html? (separating content bla bla)

Livio Mondini wrote:

> In first case, table work for presentation only, in the second organize data.

It's a design principle of HTML that it should not be used to achieve 
layout effects.  The ideal, is that your provide the layed out text 
without the layout and then arrange it physically with CSS.  CSS may not 
be adequate, but that is a problem that needs to be fixed in CSS, not in 
HTML.

> Is html a simplified clone of normal.dot?

normal.dot, and all other Word .dot files are combination style sheets 
and behaviour sheets.  Styles that correspond to HTML elements have, to 
a large extent, been adopted from HTML, rather than the other way round, 
and others are so obvious requirements that they are in all style languages.

I think you have a rather newer version of Word than I get to use, in 
the office, but with my version of Word, the ability to do complex style 
sheets is very limited in Word, mainly because you cannot style based on 
multiple selectors.  It's also particularly weak on what HTML would 
consider inline styles.

The features of Word that actually deal with structure are largely hard 
coded into the application and have nothing to do with .dot files.

It is, however, true, that the the original concept of HTML was to be 
simple compared with contemporary word processors, so that ordinary 
people could understand how to create good structure and so that it 
could be rendered onto systems with limited hardware and no extensive 
graphics libraries.  Modern HTML has, in my view, been corrupted by the 
same commercial wants that drive the capabilities of Word, so it is 
quite complex.

Your confusion of *.dot files with the structural language and desire 
for layout tables makes me feel that you really haven't understand the 
distinction between content and presentation, and are still thinking in 
in terms of producing a layout rather than providing content.



-- 
David Woolley
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Received on Saturday, 22 September 2007 11:32:02 UTC