Re: xsl:fo in web browsers

["Paul Tchistopolskii" <paul@xxxxxxx>]

> > > > Also, isn't it  handy to have just  one stylesheet for different media
> ?
> > >
> > > But generally not a good idea. The way you format something for one
> media is rarely the way it should be formatted for another.
> >
> > Very strong sentence.
> 
> Not really. It is one of the most commonly cited benefits of generic markup.

OK. I agree that there would be some differences between 
the stylesheets for different media. To me,  stylesheets which 
are having 95-99% percent in common are 'the same', but 
maybe you are talking about another percentage?

> > I have another point of view after talking to some real-life clients.
> 
> I have been producing dual-media (print and web) for five years and I have
> *never* come across a document I would by preference display the same online
> as in print.

Have you seen http://www.netit.com 

>  For a start, print is paginated. It has headers and footers, page numbers,
> tables of contents.
> On the web, you either have a scroll or multiple pages and if the latter,
> these are broken up generally according to the structure of the document,
> not a fixed page size. You have navigation bars to move, not only through
> pages, but through the hierarchical structure.

I agree, the biggest ( and the only serious ) difference is pagination
( and navigation between pages as a result ). However NetIt copes 
with that problem. I'm not saying that their solution will  work 
for *any* client. I'm saying that my experience with some real-life 
clients tells me that developers from NetIt are correct in some 
of their ideas.
 
> Consider delivery of the same document to a third medium: a PDA. There are
> completely different approaches that need to be taken to fonts, pagination
> and navigation.

What do you mean by 'completely' ?

> Now sure, these different stylesheets will have a lot in common and you can
> modularise your stylesheets to achieve this. But to produce exactly the same
> formatting objects for print, web and PDA is a really bad idea!

I agree that  in some cases it may be a bad idea. I still think 
that  in some cases it is a good idea.

I have no statistics. My feeling is that both cases have comparable 
niche.

Rgds.Paul.


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