Re: Stupid CSS question

Chris Ridd <chrisridd@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> On 19/9/05 9:46, in article 1h35o7p.nx84d7t3c273N%usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
> "Woody" <usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Chris Ridd <chrisridd@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >> On 19/9/05 9:02, in article 1h35m9y.v2nav02cpam8N%andyfraser31@xxxxxxxxxxx,
> >> "Andy Fraser" <andyfraser31@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Chris Ridd <chrisridd@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Resorting to XHTML seems a bit of a retrograde step...
> >>>
> >>> Why?
> >>
> >> You lose structure unless you use CSS classes and use generic elements like
> >> <div>.
> >
> > You do lose structure, but that is the point of display. The data is
> > XML, to display it you use something to temporarily convert it into
> > something to display for the type of display you want.
>
> That's true up to a point, but you can get interactive display too. Apple's
> developer docs are a good example - the various lists of docs get more or
> less detailed when you click on a button. The customer stats from Omni Group
> are another example.

Apples developer docs are just docbook stuff that is processed to
produce something.

> Structure makes that much easier. Hopefully I'm not holing my argument by
> pointing at two HTML examples :-)
>
> I'm not starting with plain data BTW, I'm starting with a (Docbook)
> document.

Ah, well that makes a huge difference. So yes, that is the format, not
XML, docbook format.

> I think that makes the situation somewhat different, as I'd want
> to display the document in its natural order. XSL seems good at rearranging
> stuff, and is I think overkill.

It is anywhere from simple to complicated.

> Creating an XSLT to convert a structured
> document into another document with the same kind of structure just so it
> can be displayed seems sort of wrong.

No, it is entirely right. You are taking a structured document and
formatting it for the device you want to display it on.

> > So you have an XML file, an XSLT style*** to convert it to xhtml to
> > show in a web browser, an XSL-FO style*** to convert it to pdf to send
> > somewhere, a different style*** to show it via WAP, another one to
> > format it as plain text etc..
>
> That's a nice theory. Unfortunately the only FO processor (Apache FOP) I've
> used sucked hugely, and commercial ones appear to be quite pricy. I've no
> interest in WAP (to be honest, I thought WAP had died a couple of years
> ago). I don't really care about converting to text.
>
> All I really want is to display an XML document nicely. CSS fits the bill
> perfectly except for the doc title. No complicated XML munging required...

In that case look up docbook, don't look up XML. The fact it is in XML
is a trivial implimentation detail of docbook.


--
Woody

www.alienrat.com
.

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