Re: Positioning HTML Elements with Cascading Style Sheets

Well, those are some good responses, but I don't think my question was
effectively answered.  What exactly does the "positioning" draft have over
the "layout" draft?

Not to gripe, but I preferred the layout draft because it was better at
addressing the issue of managing the assignment/layout of tags to specific
frames, plus the specified target of hypertext links from one frame to
another.  Also, I liked the fact that it did address printing concerns.

Also, there is another concern I have with the positioning draft....

On Sat, 1 Feb 1997, Joel N. Weber II wrote:
> I like programming languages.  They're powerful.   If they're well designed,
> you can do anything with them.

It mentions in the CSS1 spec that CSS is not expected to evolve into a
programming language.

In the positioning draft we see the first example of mixing a scripting
language (JS) and a stylesheet (CSS).  While I am not against the idea of
the interaction, I do think a little more thought should be given to it.

If such interaction is desired, perhaps a true method for CSS manipulation
should be declared.  What about the idea of a specific proposal declaring
a scripting interface to CSS?

If this were to happen, this interface should do two things:

1.  Provide an independent interface, not necessarily tied to one
scripting language.  Manipulation should be equally possible with
JavaScript and Visual Basic, and possible future scripting languages.

2.  Provide the ability to retrieve values and set values to various
properties.

If something like this isn't implemented, Several existing scripting
languages out there already may devise cheap "hacks" that may not take
full advantage of using CSS.  It's going to be a whole lot better in the
long run if we were to get this specified now than to regret it later.

--- Christopher Josephes -------------------------
mailto:cpj1@visi.com               Vector Internet
http://www.visi.com/~cpj1

Received on Sunday, 2 February 1997 10:08:30 UTC