Re: canvas <html> <body>

>> Generic mark-up is *not*for use on the WWW; only predefined
>> applications
>> agreed between the parties in advance.
>
>I have to partially disagree; again, the applicability of CSS to style
>any XML vocabulary depends on the vocabulary structure when compared
>with it's semantics.

What does this mean?  If you have a particular XML vocabulary, for which 
you know the browser has a style sheet, then there is no problem. Both 
parties have prior knowledge of the XML vocabulary concerned and we are 
not talking about generic mark-up.

>> We shouldn't confuse
>> the way one
>> browser (Mozilla) has chosen to implement XHTML with the
>> principles of
>> separated style and semantics.
>
>Mozilla is considered the best implementation thus far. Also, that's
>what 'cascading' is all about ;-)

Mozilla may be the best implementation so far but that does not mean 
that it is the W3C recommendation - it is just one implementation.  A 
100% compliant (X)HTML browser need understand no CSS *at all*.  This is 
the type of browser we can expect to see on some portable devices.

> That's why all my stylesheets have
>
>html,body{width:100%;height:100%;}

Why?  Are these style sheets for your XHTML files or for some arbitrary 
though well-formed XML that happen to be similar to XHTML?  If they are 
XHTML then the whole point of using XHTML is that there will be some 
default (cascaded!) presentation.  So you don't *need* to include any 
CSS, much less something as unlikely to have an effect as that 
particular rule!  (Aside: why restrict your pages to a single 
screen-full as your rule seems to do?)

>Anyway, I strongly believe that as far XHTML is concerned, all
>presentational attributes must be deprecated in favor of existing or new
>(possibly in an XHTML module for CSS 3) CSS ones.

This was largely completed in HTML 4.  I wouldn't dream of arguing 
against it, and certainly not in this forum :-)

> This will make XHTML
>easier to use as vanilla XML to store data, which is what separation of
>content and presentation is about.

That sentence doesn't make sense.  Do you mean 'XHTML will be as easy to 
use a vanilla XML'? If so, what is vanilla XML?  It doesn't *mean* 
anything. It has *no* semantics unless the browser is already aware of 
them.  If you rely on author CSS in order to make your 'vanilla XML' 
renderable then you have made a serious accessibility mistake and 
*completely* misunderstood why it was necessary to move the 
presentational aspects out of HTML in the first place. 'Vanilla XML' is 
a part of one recommended solution to data management *on the server* 
and within organisations.

-- 
George

Received on Sunday, 5 May 2002 14:51:16 UTC