Fw: Fw: CSS and XSL

I suggested wrapping the CSS attributes in an embedded <css:style> tag, and
Simon St.Laurent <simonstl@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>On the other hand, I think it actually complicates the task of creating
>fixed styles for particular elements - there's no way (yet) to specify a
>default child element and its attributes using an XML DTD or (if I remember
>right) a schema.  Since different elements would need different default
>styles, this could get even more complex, and XML DTDs lack any mechanism
>(like CSS selectors) for identifying location within a tree of elements.


Good point. I missed that one. Well... my only answer is that specifying
default values via DTDs would have to wait for XSchemas or whatever. I'm not
certain that specifying default attributes this way is very useful, anyway.
Consider that a browser shouldn't require a DTD to display a document, so
you'd _have_ to specify the default attributes in an external stylesheet.
Once you did so, specifying it in the DTD, again, doesn't buy you much (I
think) and loses much (since you are repeating information, its bound to get
out of sync eventually).

>The element/attribute change you've suggested here almost reminds of RDF,
>and the way that it treats attributes and child elements as similar
>critters.  Maybe this approach will work out eventually, as XML itself
>evolves.  It'd take a lot of work, but I think you might be on to
something!


This "unification" already exists in numerous XML related technologies. Even
XSL does that to some extent.

Anyway, I'm also for moving this discussion to a more appropriate list -
I've just signed on to www-style and
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets :-)

Share & Enjoy,

    Oren Ben-Kiki


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