In article <3d73ee80@news.povray.org> , Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg>  wrote:

> Thorsten Froehlich <tho### [at] trfde> wrote:
>> The user has selected how he wants his layout.
>
>   By the way, that's one thing where you are wrong.
>   Almost 100% of users do not select nor configure any layout-related things
> in their browser, usually because they don't know how to do it even if they
> wanted to do so (which they don't, almost without exception).

Oh, I completely agree.  the usuability of currentb browsers is so bad that
users cannot easily change it.  However, as you pointed out, if it is
missing, browsers can just be updated with the ability to change this, but
contraty to enforcing stylesheets the difference would be that the content
will still display on all current browsers, just that users do not ahve any
more control than they have now.


In article <3d73f42c@news.povray.org> , Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg>  wrote:

>   Is the <i> tag structure or layout? And <u>? How about the <em> tag?
> If some of them are layout definitions and others not, why?

Yes, the original HTML specification contained some layout tags.  If you are
able to find a copy of the 1995 edition (there is 2nd edition out now) of
"HTML for Fun and Profit".  The ISBN for the first edition is 0-13-359290-1.

In section 2.4 it explains the difference between what the author calls
"logical" and "physical" formatting.  The tags b,i,strike,tt are listed a
"physical" and the tags cite, code, dfn, em, kbd, key, samp, strong and var
are defined as "logical".

You also find a clear separation of the tags in section 9.2.1 and 15.2.1 in
the HTML 4.0 specification.  The ones referred to as "logical" formatting
above are in the section 9.2.1 "Structured text", while the ones listed as
having "physical" formatting are listed in section 15.2.1 "Font style
elements [...]"

>   Why the author of a page should have no right to define how his page
> should look like? If you buy a book, you are getting completely and 100%
> what the author of the book intended. If the author of the book felt that
> some parts of the text should have a specific font in order to differentiate
> it better from the rest of the text, he has the right to do that. If he
> feels that's how his creation should be viewed and that's the best way of
> viewing it, why shouldn't he have the right to do so?

Well, for the author of the book there is no way to not make that decision.
There is no alternative possible.  For the web there is this choice.  So why
should the author enforce more on the read than absolutely necessary if
he/she does not have to?

And keep in mind that many of the layout decisions in a book are not
actually made by the author but my the publisher.  the publisher will
usually determine the size of the book (its width and height), which in turn
defines the number of pages implicitly, just as one example.

On the web on the other hand the user defines the width and height of the
page because it is possible to delegate this choice to the user.  And it is
just possible to delegate the other choices possibel to the user.

    Thorsten

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

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