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Subject: Re: [docbook-apps] Simpler XHTML output
Hi, Rene. Exactly what do you mean by simpler? Do you mean fewer style-free-by-default-divs, or do you mean leaving out the body attributes, layout tables, and other inline styling? If you mean the many extra divs, then I think those actually help rather than hurt. A nested div that has no style applied has no effect on the rendering of the page, and I don't believe it has a great deal of impact on the processing time, either. Certainly not as much as nested tables or bad code. However, it offers a ton of hooks to tie your CSS to, which in my few weeks of working with the DocBook XSL stylesheets I've already found to be very useful. If you mean the latter, then I would agree. More specifically, a "strict and pure" version of HTML/XHTML. By default, the stylesheets produce Transitional code, and code that uses layout tables to boot. Bob's Book has instructions on modifying the templates to be strict-compliant, but for the most part they boil down to "and modify any templates needed to remove non-strict stuff". Even then, switching to full-CSS layout instead of table-based layout for the navbars, for instance, would be very non-trivial since it's such a complex template. (I've looked at it. It's a weird beasty. I'm glad someone else wrote it instead of me, because it's very cool. <g>) I don't know how deeply the Transitional code is embedded within the standard scripts, so I don't know how difficult a generic "strict and pure" extension would be to write. I know some XSLT (have been using it for years before I started using the DocBook XSL package, although nothing this elaborate), but I don't know if I'm up to the task. Would anyone with more knowledge of the guts of the scripts be able to offer input? Rene Hache wrote: > To whom it may concern, > > I was wondering if anyone has done extensive work to create a simpler > XHTML output from the XSL stylesheets? > > It is with great hesitancy that I send this email, because I > understand the hard work that goes into these stylesheets -- so please > don't take this as critisism. But I do believe that the XHTML outputs > could be significantly simpler in terms of the code it outputs and > achieve the same functionality. In fact, simpler XHTML outputs would > make it significantly easier to manipulate the look via a css > stylesheet. There is also a lot of redundant code that could easily be > handled with a css stylesheet. > > If no one has ever attempted this but is interested, I don't mind > assisting. I am by no means a XSL/XSLT programmer, but having a web > standards web designer involved in this process might be useful. > > Thanks, > Rene -- Larry Garfield AIM: LOLG42 larry@garfieldtech.com ICQ: 6817012 "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
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