Re: [docbook] strict versus transitional XHTML tables [was: DocBook Technical Committee Meeting Minutes: 18 Mar 2003]

[Paul Grosso <pgrosso@arbortext.com>]

At 00:05 2003 03 19 +0100, Tobias Reif wrote:
>Paul Grosso wrote:
>>As it stands, the XHTML strict table model includes attributes
>>for both vertical and horizontal cell alignment (as just one
>>example), so it's hard to be black and white here.  Given how
>>much presentation XHTML strict already includes, I'm arguing that making users use role="glump" instead of bgcolor="green" does more harm than good.

We're comparing having an author write:

  <td role="glump">

versus

  <td bgcolor="green">

I'm amazed people are arguing that it makes more sense for
the author to do the former.  

Be that as it may, in the latter case, the DocBook stylesheets
can pick up the bgcolor attribute and use it to generate either:

  XSL-FO:  <fo:table-cell background-color="green">

  XSL-HTML:  <td bgcolor="green">  if you don't mind transitional HTML or
             <td style="background-color: green">  if you want to use CSS

But in the former case, I don't see how this is going to work.

>What harm does it do?
>
>
>  td.glump {background-color: green}

And where in one's DocBook document does the author put that?
And if they can't put it somewhere, how does the author get
green background when they say role="glump"? 

And what do you propose to do about XSL-FO?

paul