OASIS Mailing List ArchivesView the OASIS mailing list archive below
or browse/search using MarkMail.

 


Help: OASIS Mailing Lists Help | MarkMail Help

docbook-tc message

[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [Elist Home]


Subject: [docbook-tc] CALS+HTML Table Model


Unfortunately, I will have to miss tomorrow's rescheduled
docbook tc call due to a family emergency.

The key thing on the agenda for which I might have input
is the question of tables.  As Norm's noted in the agenda,
I've provided my input.  I still think the merged model is
a good plan, and given that I will have to miss the telcon,
I'm taking the opportunity to recap my thoughts here.

While it is true that including a "merged table model" in the
DTD would mean that some semantically invalid tables would pass
DTD validation, this argument doesn't hold weight for me.  There 
are lots of semantically invalid tables the DTD allows right now 
if you consider all the semantic constraints on the various 
elements and attribute values.  For example, it's easy to say 
you have a 4 column table and then put in 5 entries.  And it's 
easy to give the colwidth a completely invalid value.  We all 
know that the DTD cannot guarantee a valid table already.  And 
it is clear that the most practical way to create a table is 
to use a tool that goes way beyond DTD constraints to ensure 
the creation of valid tables.

The key reason for allowing a document to mix tables is
that there are tools that create valid HTML tables and valid
CALS tables so a user is not unlikely to have some of each.
It seems we would be doing the user community a service if
we allow them to include the tables that they already have in 
their DocBook documents.

It is true that HTML tables whose table cell contents include
HTML element markup couldn't be incorporated directly into a
DocBook document without some modification.  However, I would
guess that over 80% of all such tables do not contain internal
markup, and for the 20% that do, it is much simpler to change
a few <p>'s to <para>'s or whatever than it is to convert the
entire table structure from HTML to CALS.

In summary, I think including a merged table model provides
more user benefits than disadvantages, and I think we would 
be doing the DocBook user community a service to do this.

paul



[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [Elist Home]


Powered by eList eXpress LLC