Re: Status of XSL and CSS?

Paul Prescod wrote:
> 
> Chris Lilley wrote:
> >
> > Aha, but that is not what you originally said.
> 
> That's fair. I was originally thinking that it might be useful to be able
> to make non-anchor objects clickable. 

You mean, for the style sheet to make new things into link anchors?

> It is not unusual to need generated
> text to be clickable, for example.

Ok but if it is generated as a before or after on an element tht is a
link, it will be stylistically part of that link (and thus, clickable,
blue, underlined, whatever)

> Sometimes links can also be inferred
> from the content. 

Um. Don't follow you there.

> This is especially relevant considering that there is no
> RECommended way to declare anchors today. 

True, although hopefully XLink will be that methiod soon.

> Nevertheless, I accept that this
> may all be beyond CSS's complexity curve.

No, now you are back to claiming that CSS can't do this; as I said, it
can.
> 
> > foo:link { text-decoration: underline; color: blue}
> > bar:link:before {content: url(icon.png) }
> 
> "The full presentation of some HTML elements cannot be expressed in CSS2,
> including replaced elements (IMG, OBJECT)."

Rightm, and true, but that does not apply to non-replaced elements (such
as links).

> I *do not* think that displaying images for arbitrary element type names
> is beyond CSS's complexity curve!! 

Nor do I, and I want the see replaced elements better described in  a
future version of CSS.

> I also think that CSS3 needs to support text generated cross references.

Perhaps; opinions vary. It is clearly useful, and also clearly can be a
performance and progressive rendering load for long documents.

> As an aside, I'm not clear on why this is named :link when it is meant to
> apply to anchors and not links. 

I think you mean, why is this called link when it only applies to link
anchors and not link heads. Thats a fair comment; it only applies to one
part of a link. The name was pehaps ill chosen. However, regardless of
the human-suggestive name, the facility is clearly there and does not
rely on the link element being called A, for instance.

> The prose also talks about "unvisited
> links" but I think it means unvisited anchors. Those are just quibbles for
> a future version, however.

Received on Friday, 16 April 1999 19:06:39 UTC