Re: Simple template-based editing

Bert Bos wrote:

> Daniel Glazman's NVu, for example, has a simple template system that 
> just allows you to distinguish elements that cannot be edited and those 
> that can, and the latter come in four types (I'm sure Daniel will 
> correct me if I miscounted them...):

The distinction between editable and not editable in Nvu is based on
attributes, themselves triggering CSS styles. Basically, that's all about
the -moz-user-select property...

> (The way NVu currently does this is specific to HTML 4.01 Transitional 
> and the template files themselves aren't valid SGML or XML, so they 
> cannot be used for the online use case I outlined above.)

It's not even valid HTML because I'm adding new attributes to HTML content.
On the plus side:

   (a) MSIE did that long ago

   (b) I have always had the feeling the did the-right-thing, and I remember
       telling Tantek about it in the train when we left the Cleveland CSS WG
       meeting...

   (b) it's stylesheet-agnostic. I do believe this is behavioral and not
       **at all** presentational. Saying an element is or is not editable is
       presentational. Saying an element is repeatable is not, IMHO.

> So how about a property in CSS3
> 
>     Name: editable
>     Value: auto | one | zero-or-one | zero-or-more | one-or-more
>     Initial: auto
>     Inherited: no

That's a neat idea, but, again, I think the path opened by MSIE **SEVEN**
years ago was a good one. And because I think (a) this is not presentational
but behavioral (b) this is not only for HTML, I believe we should have an
xml:editable attribute.

If this happens to be impossible for almost religious reasons, then I
_could_ live with such a solution but it would be quite bad design, IMHO.

> to indicate that an element is a template or not? ('Auto' means it 
> depends on whether the server supports PUT or an equivalent method. 
> Better keywords welcome...)

I don't understand this at all.

> It's obviously very limited (no way to restrict the contents beyond the 
> DTD), but it might still be useful and at least it is simple.

Restricting content insertion on block/inline status is more important.

You also miss a way to say an element is

   1. resizable
   2. movable
   3. foldable

</Daniel>

Received on Thursday, 29 September 2005 19:51:00 UTC