RE: XML Processing instruction proposal

["Didier PH Martin" <martind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

HI Peter

<YourComment>
> Here is my proposal submitted to you for discussion. this is concerning
XML
> rendered with DSSSL style sheets and it is expressed as a set of rules.
>
[...]
> b) The browser make this implicit assumption:
> 	- if not media property is mentioned it is by default the screen and the
> native rendering formatting objects are HTML+CSS based.
> Example: <?xml-stylesheet href="MyScript.dsl" type="text/dsssl"?>
> 	- If media="screen, html" then the browser is using the SGML
transformation
> part of the DSSSL engine and display the resultant SGML markups. This is
> corresponding to the Jade's flag "-t sgml".
> Example:<?xml-stylesheet href="MyScript.dsl" text="text/dsssl"
> media="screen,html"?>

I think the default medium should be "screen" and then the DSSL Online
flow objects (scroll, link etc.) should be assumed. The SGML
transformation you are referring to is non-standard Jade extensions
(indeed they are useful) and using them by default is therefore not a good
idea.
</yourComment>

<Reply>
So, on the first point you agree with the proposal (i.e that the default is
set to screen)
The second point. You are talking about Jade and I don't intend to modify
Jade as it is used today (as a console exe). My proposal concern DSSSL and
document browsers (so either a modified version of Jade or a new CSS, XSL or
DSSSL implementation). This proposal implies both IE and Mozilla but could
also affect any other document browser for XML documents.
Today, IE can render XML document as long as their stylesheet are either CSS
or XSL. Our browser extension allows this latter to include DSSSL as an
alternative style sheet and then permits now the usage of: CSS, XSL and
DSSSL to render XML document (also, solely with DSSSL style sheets, to
render SGML documents). These extensions make sense only in this context and
are based on the work on some W3C workgroups. XML specs are driven by W3C,
so I tried to uniformize the style sheet PI with the latest W3C
recommendations/proposals.
For SGML the same PI as the one used by Jade is still valid but is not
adapted to on-line browsing. In a future recommendation, I'll focus more
specifically on a new proposal for SGML documents in the context of
"on-line" rendition.
</Reply>

> - if media="screen, rtf" then the browser display the result with a RTF
> player associated to the rtf extension. For example, this could be word or
> word viewer.
> Example:<?xml-stylesheet href="MyScript.dsl" text="text/dsssl"
> media="screen,rtf"?>
>

<YourComment>
I don't see why one should specify that RTF should be used for formatting
the document. In my opinion, the process of formatting is implementation
dependent and will vary between different browsers. What I am trying to
say is that if one has a native DSSSL browser, it would be very
inefficient to do the formatting via RTF.
</YourComment>

<Reply>
Of course, if the browser can only render in a single format, this is
overkill. If the browser is more versatile and allow rendition in different
formats like for instance RTF or PDF, the last provision works for more
versatile browsers. To allows different format also have the advantage to
adapt to the user's need if a format like RTF or PDF (or any other format
supported by the browser)is needed for any good reasons the user have. A
motive could be for instance for printing or translation into an other
format. The goal is that advanced browsers able to permit different format
rendition could do so with the proper PI convention. The rule is that: if
the browser only support a single format then even the media property is
superfluous. If the browser allows the usage of a style sheet for printing
and an other one for screen rendition, then the media property just has to
contain either the value "screen" or "print". If a more advanced document
browser can even provide the choice of the rendition format then either
"screen, rtf" or "screen,pdf" could be understood by the browser. Thus, the
media property rules have to be interpreted on the base of the browser
capabilities. For very simple browsers, the media property could not even be
parsed nor understood. For sophisticated browsers, the media property could
be parsed to allow as much diversity as the browser is capable of.
</Reply>

<YourComment>
> The xml declaration is not mandatory (i.e. the <?xml version="1.0"?> )
>
Is this different from the XML standard?
</YourComment>

<Reply>
No, a well formed XML document should contain such declaration. However a
browser has the choice to refuse the document rendition or graceful degrade
and try to do its best. This is actually the case with HTML browser. They
try to do their best even if about 70 to 80% of all published documents are
not compliant to the HTML DTD. This is then just a rule in case the document
do not include the xml declaration. If, the markups are also not right (the
document is not a XML well formed document), then the browser may not be
able to render adequacy and then have to display an error message. If only
this xml declaration is missing and the document well formed then the
browser will still be able to render.
</Reply>

Regards
Didier PH Martin
mailto:martind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.netfolder.com

Regards,
/Peter

--
'(?P . (?e . (?t . (?e . (?r)))))


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