In article <3d73ab1d@news.povray.org> , Xplo Eristotle <xpl### [at] infomagicnet>
wrote:
>> I am against the layout being provided by the site.  I want full control
>> over the layout like I had in HTML originally.
>
> HTML never gave you full control over the layout. It gave page authors
> control over layout with TABLE and invisible GIFs and things like that.
> And before that, it didn't give anybody control over layout.

but this was not a problem with HTML!  It was a problem with badly design
web sites by designers nopt understanding the concept of HTML and the web
media (not their fault, all they had ever seen was DTP programs).  So they
abused HTMl and then W3C came up with a technical cure for a desease by
killing the patient (being layout less content description).  Note that
tables do represent layout, but content if used what they are supposed to be
for (like in a spreadsheet)...

> (Or even create a user
> stylesheet, use that by default, and see every page with the fonts,
> colors, links styles, and so on that YOU want.. something which HTML
> never provided

Of course HTML "never provided" it.  One just could control the layout like
fonts and font sizes more easily by nice buttons and menus rather than a
stupid text file.  Back to the future this is supposed to be, I assume...

> Your problem here is that you're naively assuming that you're the
> biggest smarty ever and that everyone should design the web to YOUR
> specifications. If I were you, I would abandon this line of reasoning
> immediately.

Using cheap personal attacks will not exactly help your point :-(

> CSS isn't designed for web users, because they don't use CSS. They use
> web pages. CSS is designed for web authors. It lets us change the look
> of a web page or even an entire site much more easily than we could with
> HTML (and using far less code, which helps those poor dialups users who
> don't want to download a new browser)..

Nonsense!  The page gets bloated like hell if you use CSS or any layout for
that matter!  I am suggesting to _remove_ it, not _replace_ it with
something I claim to be better!

> and in that sense, it is a
> solution. It makes those pages easier to maintain later, and that's a
> solution. It lets us do things with pages that we couldn't do in HTML..

But that is my point!  If I want pages that look like printed, I get a
printed leaflet, not some web page!  Right now HTML and inparticular CSS
allow things that never were HTML in the first place.  Just expand the
acronym "HTML" to see my point!  In order to use CSS "properly" I have to
clutter up what once was HTML with endless references to styles.  What a
great separtation of layout and content that is!  It is a feature added like
a hack, like so many other HTML additions the W3C companies made!

> and since people wanted to do them, that is a solution.

Who wanted them?  The designers or the users?  Designers who were great a
print media design were suddenly supposed to be web designers but inseatd of
using the new medium invatively they demanded the features they always had
when designing for print media: Full control.  So this argument support my
point, not yours.  Sorry!

> It lets us adapt
> pages to different browsing environments instead of having to abandon
> style altogether or create several versions of pages, and that is a
> solution.

You are still missing the point because you did not read what I wrote!  To
repeat myself:  I am saying that layout should not be specified at all!

> And by forming a standard for page styling that all future
> browsers will hopefully follow, we'll be able to make pages that don't
> look like crap without resorting to the sort of design tricks we had to
> use back during the days of "browser wars" and proprietary
> functionality.

Design tricks to get web pages look like printed pages, an idea by designers
incapable to understanding that a web browser is not meant for WYSIWYG DTP,
and never was.

> It's a hell of a lot better than your solution.

You did not even undstand what I said, so your conclusion just misses the
point.

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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