On Tue, 03 Sep 2002 00:23:01 +0200, Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
> In article <3d73d046@news.povray.org> , Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg>  wrote:
> 
>>   You do realize that tags like <H1>, <P>, <HR>, <I> etc are layout formatting
>> tags?
>>   No layout means that the whole page would be one contiguous line of text.
> 
> No, you are wrong.  See my other post.  They are not "layout", they are
> "structure".  I had assumed you know at least the basic terminology, but

Actually, <I> is entirely presentation.  However, people who advocate not
confusing markup with presentation also tend to advocate not using tags
like <I> and <B> and <TT> (why is it that we never see anyone using <TT>,
preferring <CODE> and <PRE>, but only very few people use <EM> or <STRONG>?)

-- 
#local R=rgb 99;#local P=R-R;#local F=pigment{gradient x}box{0,1pigment{gradient
y pigment_map{[.5F pigment_map{[.3R][.3F color_map{[.15red 99][.15P]}rotate z*45
translate x]}]#local H=pigment{gradient y color_map{[.5P][.5R]}scale 1/3}[.5F
pigment_map{[.3R][.3H][.7H][.7R]}]}}}camera{location.5-3*z}//only my opinions

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On 3 Sep 2002 11:13:11 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Tom Melly <tom### [at] tomandlucouk> wrote:
>> The bottom line is that CSS moves design out of html where it never belonged.
> 
>   I agree with you that this is exactly the reason why he should like CSS
> instead of hating it. CSS is a step towards eliminating style definitions
> from the HTML file. It's going towards the original purpose of HTML, as he
> defined it.

I think it's "Stupid CSS Tricks" (by analogy with Letterman's classic "Stupid
Human Tricks" and "Stupid Pet Tricks" segments; no judgment intended) that he
doesn't like.  Parts of CSS are wonderful, but parts of it are just plain 
broken.  Letting me choose how I want <EM> to appear?  Wonderful.  Letting
the "designer" litter my screen with scare quotes and sidebars?  No.  HTML is
not a page description language.  Use PostScript or PDF if that's what you
want.  In my (never) humble opinion, the decline of the web coincided with
the replacement of the word "author" with the word "designer" on webmonkeys'
resumes.

And on another point: who's browsing the web with a 486 these days?  Maybe
only a few poverty-level communities in central Africa, and who cares about
them anyway, right?  But wait, what about the 20 MHz Motorola 68EZ328 in my
Palm Vx?  And the 160x160 pixel display?  What went wrong with the vision of
HTML that made it possible for a program like AvantGo to succeed?  Why 
shouldn't I be able to view ANY webpage with my Palm, rather than just the
ones that have been "designed" for it?

-- 
plane{-z,-3normal{crackle scale.2#local a=5;#while(a)warp{repeat x flip x}rotate
z*60#local a=a-1;#end translate-9*x}pigment{rgb 1}}light_source{-9red 1rotate 60
*z}light_source{-9rgb y rotate-z*60}light_source{9-z*18rgb z}text{ttf"arial.ttf"
"RP".01,0translate-<.6,.4,.02>pigment{bozo}}light_source{-z*3rgb-.2}//Ron Parker

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In article <slr### [at] fwicom> , Ron Parker 
<ron### [at] povrayorg>  wrote:

>>>   You do realize that tags like <H1>, <P>, <HR>, <I> etc are layout
>>> formatting tags?
>>>   No layout means that the whole page would be one contiguous line of text.
>>
>> No, you are wrong.  See my other post.  They are not "layout", they are
>> "structure".  I had assumed you know at least the basic terminology, but
>
> Actually, <I> is entirely presentation.  However, people who advocate not
> confusing markup with presentation also tend to advocate not using tags
> like <I> and <B> and <TT> (why is it that we never see anyone using <TT>,
> preferring <CODE> and <PRE>, but only very few people use <EM> or <STRONG>?)

Indeed, the <i> does not fit here.  I referred to the other post which did
correctly list the separate tags for presentation and structure.  Looks liek
I overlooked the <i> tag in Warps list :-(

    Thorsten

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

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

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In article <3d74d12b@news.povray.org> , "Pandora" 
<pan### [at] pandora-softwarecom> wrote:

>     2. Thorsten keeps on DeWitting[1] the argument.

No, people are turning my words around and I am constantly correcting the
other misinterpretations.  But indeed, on the basis that nobody actually
seems to read what I write but just replies with the same preconceptions
ignoring what i keep saying, it is pointless to argue.

    Thorsten

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

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

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In article <3d74d186@news.povray.org> , Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg>  wrote:

>> The bottom line is that CSS moves design out of html where it never belonged.
>
>   I agree with you that this is exactly the reason why he should like CSS
> instead of hating it. CSS is a step towards eliminating style definitions
> from the HTML file. It's going towards the original purpose of HTML, as he
> defined it.

No, you can specify where things appear and in what size and the depend on
them being where they are.  Like your flying menu did.

    Thorsten

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

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

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On Tue, 3 Sep 2002 01:56:09 +0100, Pandora wrote:
> "Thorsten Froehlich" <tho### [at] trfde> wrote in message
> news:3d740221@news.povray.org...
>> Well, if you insist that structure and layout are the same for you it is
>> pointless to argue with you.
> 
>     That's the problem though - structure and layout are essentially the
> same concept viewed at differing levels of abstraction.

Perhaps there's a language barrier here that nobody has yet perceived.
What Thorsten means when he says "structure" is that part of the document's
structure which is inherent in the content: where the paragraph breaks are,
where the section breaks are, and so on.  Moving those things arbitrarily
can significantly change the tone of the document.  "Layout," on the other
hand, is presentation: what the font will be, how emphasized text will be 
marked, how many columns the page will have, whether to use illuminated caps 
as the first letter of the first paragraph of a section, and so on.  

The way I see the distinction is this: if a change in the page affects
the way you read the text aloud, it's content.  If it doesn't affect
the way you read the text aloud, it's presentation.  This is just a rule
of thumb, though, so people creating exceptions for the sake of argument
will be mocked and ignored.

Sidebars and scare quotes are a separate thing; they're really separate
documents in their own right, and should be handled with meta-markup
such as, like it or not, frames (but not iframes; when Microsoft created
iframes, they at least partially missed the point of frames.)

User Interface elements like navigation bars should never be part of a 
document, unless the entire purpose of that document is to provide 
navigation.  Yes, that probably means you should use frames.  Even Lynx
supports frames now.  Other UI elements like the omnipresent "back to 
top" links that lazy and/or incompetent "designers" put on pages that 
present too much unrelated information should also be avoided.

-- 
#macro R(P)z+_(P)_(P)_(P+1)_(P+1)+z#end#macro Q(C,T)bicubic_patch{type 1u_steps
6v_steps 6R(1)R(3)R(5)R(7)pigment{rgb z}}#end#macro _(Y)#local X=asc(substr(C,Y
,1))-65;<T+mod(X,4)div(X,4)9>-2#end#macro O(T)Q("ABEFUQWS",T)Q("WSXTLOJN",T)#
end O(0)O(3)Q("JNKLCGCD",0)light_source{x 1}// ron### [at] povrayorg

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In article <3d74c589@news.povray.org> , "Tom Melly" <tom### [at] tomandlucouk> 
wrote:

> From a practical and logical point of view, IMHO Thorsten is right (although I
> think his general stance is irrational ;).

That you think it is irrational means you at least got my point.  Which is
good.

    Thorsten

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

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

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In article <3d74b4da@news.povray.org> , Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg>  wrote:

>> You quoted me out of context (again).
>
>   No, I didn't. Saying that is another of your cheap tactics.

Ha! You provide two great examples of doing this here.

Number one:

>> - The user scren resolution may not be sufficient to clearly see a
>>   difference between bold and normal text
>> - The user might be on a too small screen where 20 pixel height is too much
>
>   The user screen can be so small that he can't properly view an image which
> the author wants to show. What should the author do? Reduce the image size
> to something really small just in case?

I was talking about text, the h1 tag in fact.  You then starts talking about
images making it look like I talked about images.

Number two:

>> Yes, that is indeed your intention.  The problem is that you fail to help
>> because of the way HTML is meant to be (not depend on a specific layout),
>> but once you have a specific layout you also make assumptions based on the
>> layout you set.
>
>   That makes no sense at all.
>   Firstly, "you fail to help" means that no-one, absolutely no-one gets any
> advantage of the layout I used. Reading people's comments about the new
> layout ("much better than the old one") clearly disproves this.
>   Secondly, the reason you give for this just doesn't make sense: "Because
> of the way HTML is meant to be"? What that does mean? How is that relevant
> to the fact that people like the current layout more than the old one?

Well, why do you startspicking on individual sentences?  You rip the
"because of the way HTML is meant to be" out of the context of the
immediately following "(not depend on a specific layout)".  With this little
not in parenthesis it makes sense if you would just bother to read it.

But you did not read any of my arguments, you did not look up any of the
examples I have about layout (or as said before call them presentation if
you like) tags in the HTML 4.0 specification versus text structure tags in
the very same specification.

If you find the same distinction in the specification of HTML and we are
talking about HTML, why do you keep attacking the definition this is all
about?

The only conclusions from the above are that you either do not understand
the definitions in the HTMl sepcification or you do not want to understand
them for the sake of argument.

In either case, whatever I say cannot convince you if we do not share the
same vocabulary and definition.  So if you are unable or refuse to
understand, not what i wrote, but what is written in the HTML 4.0
specification, then I cannot continue arguing with you because i simply
cannot take you seriously on the basis I presented above.

    Thorsten


PS:

>   And as I said before (and you conveniently skipped): The reader *can't know*
> what is important and what is not. The author does. Thus the author can help
> the reader by giving him this information.

Yes, the reader can.  If you just stick to the structure you find in books
as well.  You have a table of contents and you have sections and subsections
with headers.  More you do not need.


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

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

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Ron Parker wrote:
> Why 
> shouldn't I be able to view ANY webpage with my Palm, rather than just the
> ones that have been "designed" for it?

Same reason you can't view them on your watch: because that device's 
software or display capabilities aren't sufficient to display web pages.

Of course, a Palm is far more capable than a watch, and should be able 
to display some web pages, but the principle remains. Even if we ignore 
PC-biased web design, some pages will have *content* that depends on 
scripting, high-resolution graphics, or the like, and therefore couldn't 
work on any "merely" HTML-compatible devices anyway. Therefore, 
regardless of your philosophy on web design, you must accept that you 
will never be able to see everything on such a device.

-Xplo

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Ron Parker <ron### [at] povrayorg> wrote:
> In my (never) humble opinion, the decline of the web coincided with
> the replacement of the word "author" with the word "designer" on webmonkeys'
> resumes.

  No offence intended, but I don't see any "decline of the web". Webpages
are nowadays a lot nicer in the average than they were 5 years ago (just
look at povray.org! The difference compared to the previous is enormous,
and for good).

  For some reason purists think that making webpages bigger and cluttering
them with flashy effects is a very bad thing. I don't see why.
  Granted, those effects can be abused. But everything can be abused. Even
plain HTML, with no extras, can be abused (eg. put *everything* inside
a single <h1>...</h1> block). That's no reason enough to say that they are
bad. If well used, they can greatly enhance the look and usability of a
website.
  I certainly like a lot more a website which has a nice layout and where
things are clear and easy to find instead of a website with no layout at
all. So what if it might break the limits between structure and layout?
Who cares? Only purists do.

-- 
#macro M(A,N,D,L)plane{-z,-9pigment{mandel L*9translate N color_map{[0rgb x]
[1rgb 9]}scale<D,D*3D>*1e3}rotate y*A*8}#end M(-3<1.206434.28623>70,7)M(
-1<.7438.1795>1,20)M(1<.77595.13699>30,20)M(3<.75923.07145>80,99)// - Warp -

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