RE: Deliberate breaking of indent inheritance

Jeremias,

Thank you for your interest in XSL-FO and your
detailed discussion below.

The XSL-FO SG has had many long discussions about
how inheritance works in XSL FO over the years.
We do realize that there are some consequences of
the current inheritance model that makes for some
results that may be unexpected for some users.  This
is somewhat unavoidable in that there are (at least)
two ways inheritance could work, and both ways are
useful in certain circumstances, and the current
spec picked one of those two ways. 

However, the spec is not unclear in the matter of
inheritance (I think you agree on this).  The SG has 
some indication that the various implementations are,
in fact, bringing themselves in line with the spec in
this regard.

The best way to improve the spec would be to add the 
capability of requesting the "other" form of inheritance 
for indents.  However, such an addition to the spec is 
not within the scope of the XSL 1.1 work.  

The SG would urge implementors to implement the spec
as written.  If it is felt it is important to provide
the "other" form of inheritance, it should be done via
a namespaced extension property.  Preferably, implementors
who desire such an extension can agree on its general
syntax, and perhaps a future version of XSL can incorporate
something like that.

paul

for the XSL FO SG

> -----Original Message-----
> From: xsl-editors-request@w3.org 
> [mailto:xsl-editors-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Jeremias Maerki
> Sent: Wednesday, 2005 November 30 6:48
> To: xsl-editors@w3.org
> Subject: Deliberate breaking of indent inheritance
> 
> 
> Dear Editors,
> 
> a few months ago I documented my interpretation of the XSL-FO 1.0
> specification in terms of start-indent and end-indent inheritance on a
> Wiki page [1]. This is also the way I've implemented the functionality
> in Apache FOP (see 0.90 alpha1, not 0.20.5). I've come to realize that
> Apache FOP is currently the only implementation known to me 
> that doesn't
> deliberately break the property inheritance rules for start-indent and
> end-indent properties over reference-area boundaries.
> 
> The XSL WG's disposition on comment 20, item 4 in [2] clearly states
> that there's merit to stick to the rules. Obviously, I 
> personally agree
> with this decision but the situation produces unexpected results for
> inexperienced FO users. That's certainly the main point why many
> commercial implementors have chosen to break the inheritance rules in
> this case although this creates an interoperability issue.
> 
> Since today XSL-FO is possibly worse concerning interoperability than
> HTML I'd like to ask the XSL WG to reevaluate this topic and 
> to restate
> their updated opinion in this matter. I don't mind if the WG changes
> their opinion.
> 
> Furthermore, in my opinion, it is necessary to find a way to improve
> interoperability between implementations as a whole. It has become a
> major nuisance. If all implementors sticked their heads together to
> create an official test suite, it could help improve the 
> situation a lot
> and it would certainly help clarifying problem spots in the
> specification as well as put a certain pressure on implementors to
> improve interoperability. I'd be willing to invest some 
> effort in this.
> Are there other parties that would be willing to help?
> 
> [1] http://wiki.apache.org/xmlgraphics-fop/IndentInheritance
> [2] http://www.w3.org/2001/08/28-XSL-PR-DOC.html
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> Best regards,
> Jeremias Maerki
> 
> 
>

Received on Friday, 9 December 2005 20:37:29 UTC