mode/with-mode

[Joerg Wittenberger <Joerg.Wittenberger@xxxxxxxxx>]

While I don't quite understand how the provided example is supposed to
work, I regard it a major flaw of the DSSSL spec that modes are not
first class objects.

Hence the top of my wish list for DSSSL-2 would be something like

(make-mode <list of transformation specifications>)

which returns an object of type mode, which can be used in with-mode
rules as if was an ordinary mode.

The DSSSL-construct "mode" could be redefined like this:

now:
(mode some-mode (element ...))

future:
(define some-mode (make-mode (element ...)))

I assume that this would solve the problem at hand as well.

> I frequently come up with a need to use mode and with-mode with
> parameters. Why isn't this included in the dsssl spec and/or Jade?
> Here is an example:
> 
> (mode menu colored-items
> 
> (element title (if (member (data (current-node)) colored-items)
>                    (make element gi: "font" attribute: (list......))))
> 
> )
> 
> ...
> 
> (with-mode menu (current-node) '("important" "main menu"))
> 
> -- 
> Jon Haugsand
>   Norwegian Computing Center, <http://www.nr.no/engelsk/> 
>   <mailto:haugsand@xxxxx>  Pho: +47 22852608 / +47 22852500, 
>   Fax: +47 22697660, Pb 114 Blindern, N-0314 OSLO, Norway


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