RE: DOCBOOK-APPS: Is it time to rely on CSS?

[Jeff Beal <jeff.beal@ansys.com>]

I agree with Elliotte.  I think the key point of his post is "I certainly
don't want to rely on CSS for anything important."  I would support the idea
of going one direction with the XHTML stylesheets and another direction with
the HTML stylesheets.  That way, those for whom backwards compatibility is
not an issue can push the envelope all the way with XHTML and CSS2, no holds
barred, and the rest of us can continue as before.

Jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: Elliotte Rusty Harold [mailto:elharo@metalab.unc.edu]
Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 1:55 PM
To: Norman Walsh; docbook-apps@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: DOCBOOK-APPS: Is it time to rely on CSS?


At 1:21 PM -0500 1/20/03, Norman Walsh wrote:

>Is it time to move that line farther out, removing things that could
>be done with CSS and just expecting CSS to be used?


I vote no. Writing in DocBook and generating HTML gives me all the 
separation of style from content I need. For my HTML I want backward 
compatibility. I want it to work with Mozilla 1.0 to the extent 
possible. OK, that's a little extreme. In practice I'm willing to 
accept Netscape 1.1. But I certainly don't want to depend on CSS for 
anything important. I still see people using Netscape 2, Netscape 3, 
IE 3, and similarly old software. Hell, a month ago I fired up MacWeb 
1.0a3 for a few hours. (Remember that?) Given that both Netscape and 
IE's CSS support was severely lacking until at least version 6 of 
each browser, I can't see relying on it. I won't even say that it's 
good enough in version 6. I just know that Netscape 4 and IE 5 were 
unacceptable in my most recent batch of tests a year or two ago.
-- 

+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
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| http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0201771861/cafeaulaitA  |
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