Re: XBL is (mostly) W3C redundant, and CSS is wrong W3C layer for semantic behavior *markup

On Sun, 05 Jan 2003 17:16:09 -0600, Shelby Moore <shelby@coolpage.com> 
wrote:
> At 11:44 PM 1/5/2003 +0100, Rijk van Geijtenbeek wrote:
>
> [...]
>> Forgive for mingling here,
>
> Please do.  We need more reasonable (open minded) people involved in 
> thread so we can reach truth quicker.

Truth just is, whether reasonable or unreasonable people agree does not 
matter. But this is of course a philosophical statement, and I'm not 
planning to start a philosophical debate in a (for me) foreign language...

>> but I'd like to know what you (or others) think of, for example, this:
>>
>> h1 {font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;}
>> i {font-style: normal;}
>>
>> Doesn't this prove that the parts of CSS that are required for a 
>> conforming CSS UA can be used to create a non-conforming presentation of 
>> an HTML document? [1]

> No.  Because you haven't violated the semantics as specificied by HTML
> 4.01.  No where does HTML 4.01 say what font size a header must have.

Neither does it say an unordered list *must* be presented with items on 
separate rows, preceded by a bullet.

> However, if you instead used the CSS "display" property to change a <li>
> into a <table> element, then you would be creating non-conforming
> semantics.  This is why the "display" property is "not required by HTML
> conforming user agents"[1].

Using a one-row or one-column table, with each item as a separate cell, 
would also be a valid presentation choice. Here's what the HTML 4.01 spec 
says:

"The exact presentation of the three list types depends on the user agent. 
We discourage authors from using lists purely as a means of indenting text. 
This is a stylistic issue and is properly handled by style sheets."

The HTML 4.01 spec has an informative section about the visual rendering, 
but it also says this about headers:

"There are six levels of headings in HTML with H1 as the most important and 
H6 as the least. Visual browsers usually render more important headings in 
larger fonts than less important ones."

I don't see why

  h1 {font-size: medium;}

would not violate semantics, but

 ul {display: table;}  li {display: table-cell;}

would be a violation.

> That gives you two CSS examples to show how to separate "presentation" 
> from "non-comforming semantic implementation" per my definition[2].

I'm afraid I see no more than tautological proof here.

[..]

>> If a document *needs* CSS and/or XBL and/or XSTL to be supported by the 
>> UA before it is usable in that UA in any way, than it has failed to be a 
>> good WWW document.
>
> Agreed!  But custom markup with proper separation of layers will not be 
> so brittle.  But improper merging of layers will make your worst fears 
> come true.

Custom markup will *always* need some other layers to be useful for UAs. 
That's the whole point I was making.

-- 
Rijk van Geijtenbeek

Received on Sunday, 5 January 2003 20:27:37 UTC