RE: [docbook-tc] adding CALS attrs to HTML tables

["Paul Grosso" <pgrosso@arbortext.com>]

I'm with Norm--confused.

To what XHTML model do you refer? 

XHTML is a "reformulation of HTML 4.0 in XML" [1].  
Its semantics are defined by HTML.  The table model is
the same.  If you look at the XHTML spec, there is
a section [2] describing the differences between HTML
and XML, and all it talks about are the obvious 
differences between SGML and XML--nothing about
the table model.

The HTML 4.0 table model [3] has always supported 
tbody+ which is the HTML version of multiple tgroups.
The XHTML model is the same.

The HTML 4.0 table model has always supported 
character alignment; from the HTML 4.0 DTD [4]:

<!-- horizontal alignment attributes for cell contents -->
<!ENTITY % cellhalign
  "align      (left|center|right|justify|char) #IMPLIED
   char       %Character;    #IMPLIED  -- alignment char, e.g. char=':'
--
   charoff    %Length;       #IMPLIED  -- offset for alignment char --"
  >

I also checked the XHTML 1.1 modular table model [5]
to confirm that it is basically the same as the XHTML 1.0
table model and the HTML 4.0 table model.

paul

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#xhtml
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#diffs
[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/tables.html#h-11.2.1
[4] http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/tables.html#h-11.3.2
[5]
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-modularization/abstract_modules.html#s_tablem
odule


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bruce Rosenblum [mailto:bruce@inera.com] 
> Sent: Monday, 11 April, 2005 21:06
> To: Norman Walsh; docbook-tc@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: Re: [docbook-tc] adding CALS attrs to HTML tables
> 
> Hi Norm,
> 
> I don't know if there's a list somewhere that enumerates the 
> differences 
> between HTML and XHTML (Debbie might know). However when we 
> were looking at 
> table models for the NLM DTD, there were two key points that 
> HTML lacked:
> 
> 1. HTML does not support decimal alignment, which is essential for 
> scientific tables
> 2. HTML does not support the equivalent of multiple <tgroup> 
> elements in a 
> single table
> 
> XHTML supports both of these constructs. So we went with 
> XHTML rather than 
> HTML because it's a richer model, but also quite easy to 
> "dumb down" to 
> HTML if necessary.
> 
> Bruce
> 
> At 03:33 PM 4/11/2005, Norman Walsh wrote:
> >Hi Bruce,
> >
> >/ Bruce Rosenblum <bruce@inera.com> was heard to say:
> >| Many of the features from CALS that are useful (e.g. decimal
> >| alignment, multiple table groups) appear in the XHTML 
> table model. For
> >| this reason, the NLM DTD (http://dtd.nlm.nih.gov/) has two table
> >| models, CALS (of course) and XHTML (rather than HTML). However this
> >
> >I don't see anything in XHTML[1] that suggests it has a different
> >table model than HTML[2]. What are the differences and where are they
> >documented?
> >
> >                                         Be seeing you,
> >                                           norm
> >
> >[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801/
> >[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/