Re: CSS in XML format ?

----- Message d'origine -----
De: "Lachlan Cannon" <luminosity@members.evolt.org>


>
> > I would like to do convert strict XHTML + CSS documents to some other
> > format using XSLT. In order to do so, interpreting the stylesheet
> > information during this transformation is essential.Unfortunately, the
> > CSS syntax is very hard (to use a euphemism) to interpret with XSLT.
> >
> > Is there an initiative to have CSS use XML syntax ? I understand that
> > when CSS 1 was first proposed by Bos & Lie XML was not around, but why
> > not plan a transition towards XML syntax ?
>
> Patrick,
>
> XSL is already in XML format, while CSS has it's own unique one. I find
> the syntax of CSS to be much much more intuitive for what it does, and
> would strongly object to it being rewritten in xml.

Yes, I have heard this argument. Right now, having to convert it, I'm not at
all convinced of its strength...

I see two schools of thought : the style sheet syntax must be terse and
intuitive for human conception or the style sheet syntax should be in XML to
be easily processable, verbosity is of no consequence since style sheets are
more and more produced automatically or through an GUI interface (my case at
least).


> Apart from anything
> else it would be much more verbose, and harder to learn. I also believe
> it'd be less intuitive, create much larger file sizes than necessary,
> and of course it wouldn't work in current browsers which already do a
> good job interpreting it as it is.

I did say transition, I don't see why one version of CSS could not be
expressed using both syntaxes while mentioning that XML will become the
future standard syntax.

> If the presentation is that important that you need to use it when
> you're transforming I recommend you use XSL,

You mean FO ? Unfortunately, I do not control the XHTML that I need to
convert automatically. And these many files (constantly new ones are being
created by the customer) use CSS !

P. A.
-----------------
Unicode en français
(tout le texte normatif, annotations, tous les noms de caractères 3.2)
http://hapax.iquebec.com

Received on Wednesday, 10 July 2002 10:53:45 UTC