Re: XSL:FO: Left ... Center ... Right

Subject: Re: XSL:FO: Left ... Center ... Right
From: Stephen Deach <sdeach@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 18:24:41 -0700
At 20:59 1999-10-17 +0100, you wrote:
>Stephen Deach writes:
> > This would not exactly center the word "Centre". It would be a reasonable
> > expectation that it would generate equal-length inline-rules.
> > Three samples:
> > .................................................
> > .                                               .
> > .L                      C                      R.
> > .                                               .
> > .L           C           Bunch of stuff on right.
>
>Ah. If that is your interpretation of <fo:inline-rule>, then indeed I
>am screwed. I was interpreting "length='auto'" as exactly similar to
>TeX's infinitely expandable glue. "shall expand to fill any free space 
>on the current line" does not imply to me that the result of two
><fo:inline-rules> on the same line would produce the same length rule.

So, given 2 or more inline-rules in a line,what do you expect? The most
logical choices are: 
  "disallowed"
     which is not supported in the history of typographic applications, or 
  "equalize length"
     which is what every publishing industry product I know of (or have
     worked on) has done. (Thus the genesis of the phrase "reasonable 
     expectation".)
>
>Nikolai's contention that the <inline-rule>s would actually each fill
>up the entire rest of the line, yielding three lines, bothers me. Do
>other people read "length='auto'" that way? that it is processed
>sequentially, instead of being applied when the rest of the line is
>complete?

Per above,this would be the least-rational treatment of the option.

>
>By the way, Stephen's phrase "reasonable expectation" is pretty
bothersome....!
>
> > The desired result can be created using position="absolute" or
>
>um. you mean I would say:
>
><fo:static-content flow-name="xsl-after">
><fo:block>
><fo:linline-sequence position="absolute"
left="auto">Left</fo:linline-sequence>
><fo:linline-sequence position="absolute"
center="auto">Centre</fo:linline-sequence>
><fo:linline-sequence position="absolute"
right="auto">Right</fo:linline-sequence>
></fo:block>  
></fo:static-content>

NO.
For absolute positioning in the centered field:
  you may not say "center='auto'",
  you must specify:
    position=absolute
    left=[0]
    right=[region-width] and 
    text-align=center
  to get the desired result.
The left & right fields are analogous (l=0,r=width, text-align=L/R).
      
>
>? I guess I could live with that, although it does not seem too natural.
>
> > using a table. (There may be other ways.)
>
>I thought about tables. In practice I backed away because my table
>support is so bad that I could not make it work :-}
>
>But more importantly, I am very chary of table abuse. Is a three part
>running footer really a *table*? Yes, it is to 99.9% of HTML coders,
>but doesn't the political correctness lobby chide them for this dismal
>attitude? I suppose its closer to a table than a list....

I also worry about the use (abuse) of abuse vs. providing a proper
formatting tool to get the desired result. However, the use of "tabs" is
even worse.
  For many "two-zone" and "three-zone" headers and footers, tables are an
acceptable mechanism. For those where the widths of the content doesn't
fall into the cell widths the use of position="absolute" is a tolerable
fallback.

>
>Sebastian
>
>
> XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
>
>

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