Re: DSSSL Design Question

[Vivek Agrawala <vivek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

James Clark wrote:
>
> > What are the advantages of "First Class Modes" over the
> >  "Not For Formatter Characteristics" ??
> 
> You can only use inherited-c inside the specification of a characteristic.
  ....
> On the other hand there's no such restriction with first class modes.

Ok, I am convinced.  Can we also define first-class modes at the
top level, just like other processing modes, but with parameters?

The following is based on James' earlier example:

(first-class-mode mode-fff (x y)
   (element BAR
      (if x
        (make simple-page-sequence)
        (make scroll)))
   (element BAZ
      (literal y)) )

(element FOO
   (let ((x (compute-some-info-about-foo))
         (y (compute-some-other-info-about-foo)) )
     (with-first-class-mode mode-fff (x y)
        (process-children)) ))


-- Vivek Agrawala, Ph.D.
Siemens Corporate Research, Inc.	email: vivek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 DSSSList info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/dsssl/dssslist