Re: FO. lists as tables. Re: Q: XML+XSL transforms to a print-readyformat

["Paul Tchistopolskii" <paul@xxxxxxx>]

>  > Could  you please  take a look at  http://www.renderx.com/Tests/
>  > 

> I see a nice table, and indeed you have expressed it all as lists. 
 
> My only problem is that when I am writing an XSL spec to display
>  <table><row><cell></cell></row></table>
> I really am not thinking in terms of lists. So although you show it
> can be done, I just cannot imagine doing it in practice. 

It depends on what do you mean by 'practice'.  

Also.

Inner vertical borders in these tables are created by borders 
on fo:list-item-bodies. This contradicts the XSL WD, 
where list-item-bodies are said not to create any area. 
As I have already mentioned in the xsl-list (in a message about 
interplay between lists and indents), we find this behaviour very 
confusing, and treat list-item-labels/list-item-bodies as separate 
rectangular areas placed inside fo:list-item. 
This enables us to assign borders to them. WIthout these 
borders, you will get exactly the same topology, but only the 
horizontal lines (created by borders of fo:list-items) and the 
overall list-block border will remain. 

So we are *not*  saying that it's more than : 

a) our internal test for lists ( it's why it is not 
yet publshed on the website. However, it may 
appear there some day ).

b) the workaround in situation when you need
to start building your XML framework with the 
*incomplete* implementation of FOs.

In situation when XSL FO WD itself is still 
incomplete, starting with the incomplete 
implementation of the XSL FO WD may 
be reasonable. I'm not saying that the 
majority of XML users should use this 
particular trick. I'm not saying that the 
majority of XML users should start with the 
incomplete stantard. On another hand, 
people have started with HTML ( and 
JavaScript and Java e t.c. ) when each 
of those things was incomplete. 

Yes - it's just a hack, causing some part of 
XSLT stylesheet to become more messy 
than it should be and after receiving the 
next version of FOs implementation you
may change that part  of the stylesheet. 
( You anyway need to change your 
stylesheets with every version of  XT -
of course the chnages required are 
not so dramatic )

Would it be better to have all parts of the 
system in place in one moment? 
Of course yes. ( How often it happens 
is another story ).

Would it be better if you'l have no way to 
render tables at all? I don't think so.

And the last but not the least - even 
having tables, you may find that in some 
situations ( with some XML input files) 
some table-alike things  may  be better 
rendered  as a nested lists, so this 
knowledge is not absolutely useless. 
Hacking sometimes helps.
 
> How do you express decimal alignment in such a notation?

I don't think we'l ever do it. 
We'l support the 'standard' tables soon. Tables are 
based on the same internal  API as lists. Lists are 
just tables. Two columns, one row.  Aren't they? 

Rgds.Paul.

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