Re: Reconsider SVG 1.2

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004, Chris Lilley wrote:
>>
>> To clarify: the assertion to which you refer is that CSS is an optional 
>> layer, and that the markup sent over the wire should be in a language 
>> that is natively recognised by the user's agent.
> 
> Why should the user agent have anything to do with it? Its whether its
> recognised by the user that is impostant.

User agent or user, sure. Few users know any markup languages, and even 
fewer want to deal with documents at that level, hence why for most users 
it is the user agent's "knowledge" of languages that actually matters.


> if, for example, a geologist wants to get some material in RockML than, 
> frankly, if its a textual-document-like markup language where the CSS 
> box model would do a reasonable stab at laying it out, then sending 
> RockML plus a CSS stylesheet smmes a way better thing to do than, say, 
> converting it to HTML (thus loosing all of the semantics) before 
> transmission.

Sure; if there really is a RockML that the user knows, and if the document 
is only going to be read by people who know how to handle RockML, then 
sending RockML is absolutely fine (whether styled with CSS or not -- that 
is irrelevant).


>> IMHO, CSS works well with SVG, for example [...] with alternate 
>> stylesheets it allows different looks to be easily applied to the same 
>> basic shape, and so forth. Much the same advantages that HTML gets from 
>> CSS.
> 
> Well, I agree that the advantages that SVG gets from CSS also apply to
> HTML. The reverse is not true.

Yup, HTML gets more from tree decoration languages like CSS than SVG does. 
That isn't really pertinent to my point, though.


>> Of course CSS isn't _required_ for either; it is, by design, an 
>> optional layer.
> 
> Right. Although that implies that keyboard shortcuts and tab order and
> so forth should not be defined in CSS, per
> http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/#gl-device-independence.

On the contrary, CSS is exactly the layer for media-dependent details such 
as keyboard shortcuts (which are device-specific) and tab order (which 
depend on the layout used, which itself depends on the device and 
stylesheet). The idea of device-independence is to have the markup be 
usable on all devices, and to then optionally take hints from the media- 
and device- specific presentational layer to improve the user experience.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Thursday, 18 November 2004 23:09:00 UTC