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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Future of XSL-FO at W3C??
 At 2002-10-17 12:11 +0300, m batsis wrote: >But since you are talking about requierements, FO is far too complex and >verbose for no apparent reason (in my eyes at least). Then I personally think you are missing something. >Instead of duplicating the semantics of CSS in XML syntax, it should have >been using CSS directly for the same reasons XPath expressions are not >written as XML. The reasons are not the same at all in my eyes. XPath expressions are known a priori and are composed into single attribute values for brevity ... there is no need to manipulate individual steps of XPath location paths during the process of a transformation. However, in the process of specifying formatting properties, the tweaking of individual properties and the newly introduced subproperties (components of a property, such as space-before.conditionality='retain' which I need periodically) would not be feasible if the property specification were a CSS-style-like long single string of multiple components. The design of XSLT 1.0 was made simpler by not having the string manipulation required for pulling apart and putting together of a CSS-style-like property string ... XSLT is a node tree manipulation tool, not an angle-bracket and string manipulation tool. Treating property specifications as individual attribute nodes fits well in the entire processing model of the two specifications designed to work together. I cannot subscribe to your conclusion that "FO is far too complex and verbose" ... it is but a hierarchical node tree expression of the semantics to apply to the contained content ... and XML is the best way there is to express hierarchies ... and lengthy multi-property CSS-style-like attribute expressions are not at all hierarchical. >Just my quarter of a euro. I think your debate is far more worthwhile than this, though I don't agree with your conclusions. Our XSL-FO students come to our courses with many such preconceived notions, so I'm anxious to help people understand that XSL-FO is far simpler than they may think. The XSL-FO book we sell from our web site has a freely downloadable preview with the complete text of the introductory chapters and all annexes: Practical Formatting Using XSL-FO (Extensible Stylesheet Language Formatting Objects) Third Edition - 2002-09-05 - ISBN 1-894049-10-1 Copyright (c) 2002 Crane Softwrights Ltd. / 396 Pages / Subscription price includes free updates, / / soft-copy of included examples, and an / / accessible rendition and 10 PDF renditions. / / Free 206-page download preview excerpt. The PDF book is extensively hyperlinked both internally as well as out to the HTML of the Recommendation itself (the book is in effect an alternative way of walking through the W3C document itself since you can jump to the Recommendation from within the book). The free download includes the hyperlinks. I hope this is considered helpful. ...................... Ken -- G. Ken Holman mailto:gkholman@C... Crane Softwrights Ltd. http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/x/ Box 266, Kars, Ontario CANADA K0A-2E0 +1(613)489-0999 (F:-0995) ISBN 0-13-065196-6 Definitive XSLT and XPath ISBN 0-13-140374-5 Definitive XSL-FO ISBN 1-894049-08-X Practical Transformation Using XSLT and XPath ISBN 1-894049-10-1 Practical Formatting Using XSL-FO Next public training: 2002-12-08,2003-02-03,06,03-03,06 
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