I read this today and was rather surprised to see it! Its interesting to see that
the companies think it is necessary to 'come together' on the various styles, but
then for some reason I thought that was what this working group was about!
Forwarded message 1
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SUBJECT: WEB PAGE STYLES TO BE STANDARDISED
SOURCE: The Financial Times via First! by Individual, Inc.
DATE: May 16, 1996
INDEX: [5]
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Multimedia Business Analyst via Individual Inc. : Leading members of the
World Wide Web Consortium, including Microsoft, Netscape, America Online
and CompuServe, are proposing a common set of Hypertext Markup Language
(HTML) commands to control the way Web pages look. They are concerned that
lack of interoperability between different browsers and the need to
maintain multiple versions of documents is hampering the growth of the Web.
Currently, browser publishers incorporate proprietary extensions into
HTML, the standard language for developing Web sites, to create additional
presentational features such as blinking headlines and scrolling text
pages. These stylistic flourishes serve to attract Web page developers who
wish to catch the eye of advertisers and readers. However, a page which
looks attractive when viewed with Netscape Navigator can appear garbled
when viewed with a different browser.
The proposed style sheets would make it possible for Web pages to be read
by users with a wide range of incompatible browers by providing a standard
set of commands to enhance aspects of page presentation such as fonts,
coloured text and headline sizes.
[05-16-96 at 15:37 EDT, Copyright 1996, The Financial Times, File:
e0516154.314]
Copyright (c) 1996 by INDIVIDUAL, Inc. All rights reserved.