RE: How is it possible to devise such a feeble system?

On Sun, 28 Oct 2001, Jeffrey Yasskin wrote:

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ssyreeni@cc.helsinki.fi 
> > Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2001 5:11 AM
> > Subject: RE: How is it possible to devise such a feeble system?
> > 
> > 
> > On Fri, 26 Oct 2001, Jeffrey Yasskin wrote:
> > 
> > >Now, if CSS provided a way to express axes for headers, this table 
> > >would be exactly equivalent to an HTML table to all CSS-capable 
> > >browsers. The browser doesn't have to understand the new XML 
> > dialect, 
> > >it just has to understand CSS.
> > 
> > So what is the role of XHTML? We have no need to standardize 
> > such a thing if every last semantic thing there is can be 
> > enumerated as a valid value for the display property.
> 
> XHTML allows a browser to contain a default stylesheet so the author
> doesn't need to include it. IIRC, each version of CSS so far has
> included an updated default stylesheet for HTML. XHTML also works well
> as an interim measure until CSS catches up to the necessary presentation
> rules.
> 
> > This is 
> > an objection I already raised: if table /semantics/ can be 
> > marked in CSS, why not abbreviations, addresses, citations 
> > and so on, ad nauseam?
> 
> The _presentation_ of those elements should be included. Oops. I seem to
> have reversed myself. . .
> 
> Goal: CSS needs to be able to reproduce in an arbitrary XML grammar the
> _presentation_ of anything currently available in XHTML.
> That means that we need a way for my example to sound like a table in an
> aural browser. In order to do that, we need a way to group the elements
> in rows and columns, and a way to associate header information with
> certain cells. Obviously the table properties are supposed to be used
> for that. So, in order to tell an aural browser how to present a table,
> they have to include some semantics. (If I'm wrong on that, tell me how
> to write a stylesheet to display my example aurally without encoding
> semantics)
> You're suggesting that in an aural browser {display:table} would encode
> semantics, but in a visual browser it wouldn't. Certainly that's a
> possible direction for the spec to go, but I don't think it's a good
> idea.
> 
> Here's my example again:
> <rates>
>   <title>Rates</title>
>   <amount>$0-$1000</amount>
>   <amount>$1000-2000</amount>
>   <amount>$2000+</amount>
>   <period>
>     <length>6mo</length>
>     <rate>2%</rate>
>     <rate>3%</rate>
>     <rate>4%</rate>
>   </period>
>   <period>
>     <length>2yr</length>
>     <rate>4%</rate>
>     <rate>5%</rate>
>     <rate>6%</rate>
>   </period>
> </rates>
> 
> <style>
> rates {display:table}
> title, amount, length {display: table-cell;}
> title, length {speak-header: once;}
> amount (speak-header: always;}
> period {display: table-row;}
> rate {display: table-cell;}
> </style>

For this to display correctly would you not have to put a table row around
the top ones because the structure i see just now is 

<table>
   <td>Rates</td>
   <td>$0-$1000</td>
   <td>$1000-$2000</td>
   <td>$2000+</td>
 <tr>
   <td>6mo</td>
   <td>2%</td>
   <td>3%</td>
   <td>4%</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>  
   <td>2yr</td>
   <td>4%</td>
   <td>5%</td>
   <td>6%</td>
 </tr>
</table>

Obviously there are TH in here also but i don't know XML too well however

I believe you should have a <tr></tr> just after the <table>.

If i am wrong i aplogize 

 

> 
> To Table module editors: In the current table model, there's no way to
> display this aurally either. We need that way to associate header
> information with certain cells before it works.
> 
> Jeffrey Yasskin
> 


Darren Ferguson

Received on Sunday, 28 October 2001 17:17:13 UTC