docs vs browsers

frans van hoesel (hoesel@chem.rug.nl)
Tue, 3 Aug 1993 00:43:53 +0100 (MDT)


I know this is a problem. there are many people that want to keep
html a clean language, not allowing formatting info inside a document
(see the discussion about poems and now about the numbers on an <ol>).

Just as someone editting the soviet exhibit at this very moment (the
final touch) I can tell you that I, as a writer of the docs, use
every trick I can to do some formatting. One of the tricks is to
use invisible images that use up space, and therefore can determine the
formatting on a particular browser (xmosaic in this case).

You might say: "don't do that frans or we'll shoot you", but on the
other hand, when it is clear that there is a need for this type of
formatting, why not provide it (instead of making me use nasty tricks)

providing formatting (not by semantics, but simply by position) can be
very nice, and if a browser does not like it, it can skip it (after all
that is the current situation). Docs with invisible image to do
the formatting are much harder to handle on browser that really insist
on handling their own formatting.

- frans