Re: Fw: CSS and XSL

["Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 02:53 PM 2/15/99 +0200, you wrote:
>BTW, most of the arguments of "keeping style in a single attributes" are
>directly convertible to "keeping style attributes in a single tag" - in this
>case, either <css:rule> in a stylesheet or a <css:style> tag embedded inside
>any other tag. This keeps DTDs clean and simple, separates references to
>style attributes in the DOM (element.style.<attribute>) and in general is a
>Good Thing (tm). The point is, all these advantages can be obtained within
>the XML framework - there's no real reason for a single textual STYLE
>attribute.

That approach neatly sidesteps the tremendous tag soup potential I'd
presented before.  Keeping style information separate from the document
content seems to me a worthwhile goal, one I value because of too much
(painful and dull) experience with the other approach.

On the other hand, I think it actually complicates the task of creating
fixed styles for particular elements - there's no way (yet) to specify a
default child element and its attributes using an XML DTD or (if I remember
right) a schema.  Since different elements would need different default
styles, this could get even more complex, and XML DTDs lack any mechanism
(like CSS selectors) for identifying location within a tree of elements.

The element/attribute change you've suggested here almost reminds of RDF,
and the way that it treats attributes and child elements as similar
critters.  Maybe this approach will work out eventually, as XML itself
evolves.  It'd take a lot of work, but I think you might be on to something!


Simon St.Laurent
XML: A Primer / Building XML Applications (April)
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http://www.simonstl.com


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