Re: [xsl] odf2xhtml: Processing nested element content seperatly ?

["Andreas M." <sfamix@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 27.10.2006 15:47 David Carlisle wrote

>> ODF has a different approach to lining out text than HTML. HTML is 
>> sensible: Within html:p there may be no other block-elements
> 
> That's not sensible it's crazy! It's also something finally fixed in the
> drafts of xhtml2, where p is given a more reasonable content model.

That's a native-lagnuage Oops! here ;-) I did not mean sensible, I meant
sensivtive (but wrote sensible), lol.

>> I would be very glad if someone would know of a solution, since right
>> now, I make all a <div> and this is surley not, how HTML should be
>> marked up.
> It seems perfectly sensible to me, although the alternative is to group
> the block elements and close and re-start the p's code to do that is
> posted often enough (there was a thread last month if I recall)

The main resons I rely so much on the <html:p> is, that it has been
defined that way and I guess, that 3rd party stuff like screenreaders
may need it.

The html:div serves much more than just outlining text. We can clearly
see this in DHTML and AJAX stuff, where it gets used more for software
design than content. I have no problems with this.

> The reason why most language formats (other than html) allow block level
> constructs in paragraps is that most natural languages allow that.
> If I say that
>   a) it's reasonable to have a list mid sentence,
>   b) it's reasonable to have a sentence mid paragraph, and so
>   c) it's reasonable to have a list mid paragraph
> then the natural way to mark up taht is as a list within a paragraph.

You find it reasonable to have an (ordered) list mid-sentence ? ;-)
And while your example does show, that it indeed is possible, this seems
like bad written-language style to me. I have never seen such an
approach in printed media.

Of courcse, a flat listing like:

 He said: "Look at this, Maa", and started to show his mother the things
 he brought home from the play and listed them. There was [a frog, a
 mosue, a rat, an old tincan with rests of machine-oil] in it.

is another thing and is alongside with what you say. Though, also this
leads to bad language style, since between the "rat" and the "old
tincan", an "and" would have sounded less "robot-speak", in this case.

When I look at technical references, they list lists as a reference.
Thus they use a bulleted approach or a table, and that does not fit into
mid-sentence. It's more like a paragraph of its own or an illustration.
A seperate object.

I like the current HTML approach, which seems more "natural language"
(but I will not neglect should I become corrected), it's just, that it
is much more difficult to deal programatically with it that way, if
other XML formats do prefer other approaches.

The way ODF has been specced at this corner makes me feel helpless:
<text:p> should define a paragraph of text, as I see it, just as in
natural language. All illustrations and objects, tables, list, do not
belong into it. A paragraph is an object of its own. It's atomic, at
least for natural language. I just had a look at a book about arts
("-isms" by Steven Little), about introducory computer technology for
teenagers ("Computerzeit I., Falken Verlag) and the 2006, 38. issue of
hungarian HVG magazine and nowhere could I find an illustration, an
(un)ordered list or table mid-sentence. They all were aligned to the
left/right or at top/bottom.

This seems an interesting topic. It's about the clashes of two
worlds: Expression of a list for a human mind and for a computer. The
human knows it's a list (the flat list shown above) the computer
doesn't. Very interesting, indeed. In this email, it might be
interesting for a processor to extract the lists.

I do agree, that it may make sense, to allow at least for lists within
HTML paragraphs, though, since special cases may arise then and when.

-- 
Bye,
Andreas M.