- From: Todd Fahrner <fahrner@pobox.com>
- Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 17:25:09 -0700
- To: Chris Lilley <Chris.Lilley@sophia.inria.fr>, David Perrell <davidp@earthlink.net>, www-style <www-style@w3.org>
At 0:34 +0200 6.5.97, Chris Lilley wrote: > On Jun 4, 2:06pm, Todd Fahrner wrote: > > The presence of markers to separate the > > "paragraph items" points to the artificiality of the distinction > > between block and list-item display types. > > No, not really. In DSSSL-speak CSS has three flow objects - block, inline, > and list-item. More are likely to be added. An aside: personally I have found the recent infusion of DSSSL-speak very helpful, particularly the "flow-object" concept. But as for flow-objects being added to CSS - do you mean as part of a "declarative subset" of DSSSL, or a new level of ambition for CSS? > But the inline pilcrow-separated paragraphs are still inline flow objects, > not list items of any sort. And (given widespread availability of good CSS > implementations) the paragraphs will still be marked up as paragraphs. A cursory scan of some graphic arts history texts suggests the strongest morphological connections between the pilcrow as paragraph separator and the bullet or other fleuron as list-item separator. There's a line of descent from inline paragraph markers (pilcrows), to on-the-margin markers (including empty- and filled-indent treatments), to in-the-margin markers (including hanging indents, and fleurons such as bullets). Consider religious texts whose "paragraphs" are rendered typically much like <OL> list items - numbered verses. So I posit that the distinction between lists and other sorts of item-blocks (like paragraphs) is one of habit and history - nothing more semantically essential. > > I'd say let it look like a train wreck. "Idiot-proof" can't be a > > design requirement: they'll invent better idiots. > > I assume you just read that fast, or my flippant tone deceived you. > Telling entire countries that their web pages can look like a train > wreck because ASCII is fine for us is not actually something we can > get away with, as I am sure you realise. I also presume that you didn't > mean to call everyone from any country that uses a different writing > direction an idiot. You presume correctly - some of my best friends are idoi - er, write backwar - er, are ambidextrous! :^) If you endeavor to accommodate bi-directional horizontal and vertical flow on the canvas simultaneously, with collision avoidance and "reader-author-machine balance", I don't envy you. Especially not if you're starting with CSS. That was the context of my remark. > Providing the basic ability to lay out a page of simple text is actually > a rather more pressing priority and helps rather more people than figuring > out how to do some arty rearrangement of paragraphs or lists for visual > glitz. However, if possible, we would like to cater for both communities. One person's glitz is another's legibility. Control is control. ________________________________________ Todd Fahrner mailto:fahrner@pobox.com http://www.verso.com/ The printed page transcends space and time. The printed page, the infinitude of books, must be transcended. THE ELECTRO-LIBRARY. --El Lissitzky, 1923
Received on Wednesday, 4 June 1997 20:15:39 UTC