Re: XSL:FO: Left ... Center ... Right

Subject: Re: XSL:FO: Left ... Center ... Right
From: "Sebastian Rahtz" <sebastian.rahtz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 20:59:31 +0100 (BST)
Stephen Deach writes:
 > This would not exactly center the word "Centre". It would be a reasonable
 > expectation that it would generate equal-length inline-rules.
 > Three samples:
 > .................................................
 > .                                               .
 > .L                      C                      R.
 > .                                               .
 > .L           C           Bunch of stuff on right.

Ah. If that is your interpretation of <fo:inline-rule>, then indeed I
am screwed. I was interpreting "length='auto'" as exactly similar to
TeX's infinitely expandable glue. "shall expand to fill any free space 
on the current line" does not imply to me that the result of two
<fo:inline-rules> on the same line would produce the same length rule.

Nikolai's contention that the <inline-rule>s would actually each fill
up the entire rest of the line, yielding three lines, bothers me. Do
other people read "length='auto'" that way? that it is processed
sequentially, instead of being applied when the rest of the line is
complete?

By the way, Stephen's phrase "reasonable expectation" is pretty bothersome....!

 > The desired result can be created using position="absolute" or

um. you mean I would say:

<fo:static-content flow-name="xsl-after">
<fo:block>
<fo:linline-sequence position="absolute" left="auto">Left</fo:linline-sequence>
<fo:linline-sequence position="absolute" center="auto">Centre</fo:linline-sequence>
<fo:linline-sequence position="absolute" right="auto">Right</fo:linline-sequence>
</fo:block>        
</fo:static-content>

? I guess I could live with that, although it does not seem too natural.

 > using a table. (There may be other ways.)

I thought about tables. In practice I backed away because my table
support is so bad that I could not make it work :-}

But more importantly, I am very chary of table abuse. Is a three part
running footer really a *table*? Yes, it is to 99.9% of HTML coders,
but doesn't the political correctness lobby chide them for this dismal
attitude? I suppose its closer to a table than a list....

Sebastian


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