Re: [docbook-apps] slides: how to balance presentation and content

[Stefan Seefeld <seefeld@sympatico.ca>]

DavePawson wrote:
> Justus-bulk@Piater.name wrote:
>> Stefan Seefeld <seefeld@sympatico.ca> wrote on Tue, 20 Jan 2009
>> 09:51:23 -0500:
>>
>>> <foil template="my-two-column-template">
>>>  <block name="left">
>>>    <itemizedlist/>
>>>  </block>
>>>  <block name="right">
>>>    <mediaobject/>
>>>  </block>
>>>  <block name="footer"/>
>>> </foil>
>>
>> I see. Not bad. However, I would prefer to avoid element grammar to
>> depend on attributes because this is not generally the way DocBook
>> does it.
>>
>> This sort of layout can in principle be achieved using DocBook tables
>> (CALS or HTML style), which is what I do, but it is unwieldy and
>> cumbersome to adjust.
>
> It is not semantic, it is inaccessible for non-visual users
> and plain bad XML IMHO.

Could you elaborate on that a bit ?

You are certainly right about the non-semantic nature of this markup (if 
in fact you stipulate that presentation is non-semantic, which, in the 
context of slides, one could argue about).

 I don't quite agree about the (in-)accessibility point. Obviously, the 
order those blocks appear matters, but having them being rendered (or 
read) in the order in which they appear seems to be a good compromise 
(and that is in fact what HTML pages with accessibility in mind, do, too).

And what makes the above 'plain bad XML' ?

Thanks,
       Stefan

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