From: F J Franklin (F.J.Franklin@sheffield.ac.uk)
Date: Sun Nov 10 2002 - 09:40:33 EST
On 9 Nov 2002, David Chart wrote:
> On Fri, 2002-11-08 at 20:54, F J Franklin wrote:
> > The second
> > list implementation uses tables to do indentation and numbered lists are
> > labelled "by hand".
>
> The first is that I think we should export lists as lists. XHTML is a
> structured language, not a pure layout language.
It's an easy change, and one that I'm happy to comply with, but I'd like
to offer the option at some point - maybe in HEAD rather than STABLE...
The more I think about *HTML export, the more options I think of. It's
crazy to have these all represented by seperate exporters in the export
dialog combo. Ultimately I'd like to have an options dialog box with check
boxes etc. - but that's definitely for HEAD.
> The second is that it is bad practice to use tables for layout in XHTML.
I would love to use CSS for all layout, but browsers have mixed support
for this... DreamWeaver makes extensive use of tables for layout, and
while I neither applaud nor condemn this, I must say I am impressed with
the results.
> Most notably, it confuses reading browsers for the blind.
This is what worries me, and why I would not object to making nested lists
the default
> It also makes for XHTML code that is difficult to maintain.
Fair enough. But when it comes to using AbiWord to create XHTML
documents, there are various types of user, and one is the person who
wishes to make a simple webpage using AbiWord and have it reproduced as
faithfully as possible.
(I was using MSWord'98 the other day, out of curiosity, created some
nested lists and saved as HTML - and the document really screwed up as a
result. I mean I would never use MSWord for creating webpages anyway, since
I detest the HTML it produces, but I would have expected something better
than I got... I don't know how DreamWeaver handles nested lists, but I can
find out. I have to say that DreamWeaver MX is one of the best
word-processors I've ever used, I'm really quite awed by it...)
So there's a large class of user who have no interest whatsoever in the
HTML they produce, they just want a webpage that looks like what they
typed into AbiWord, and the table-list approach gives them exactly that.
(And then there are people like myself who write their HTML from scratch,
or who buy DreamWeaver cos that's what it does, or both...)
> Note that this implementation will not round-trip, because you will lose
> the list information, although the other implementation might.
This is a non-issue, really; I can fix it easily enough. The real issue is
that other word-processors will get confused.
Regards, Frank
Francis James Franklin
F.J.Franklin@shef.ac.uk
`Medium atomic weights are available: Gold, Lead, Copper, Jet, Diamond,
Radium, Sapphire, Silver and Steel.
`Sapphire and Steel have been assigned...'
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