Re: Structured text v. page descriptions (was Netscape, HTML, and Designers)

H&kon W Lie (howcome@dxcern.cern.ch)
Fri, 28 Oct 1994 11:56:01 --100


Dave Hollander writes:

> > That's not implied at all. It's not a question of whether or not it looks
> > good, it's a question of whether or not the document's creator has control
> > over the appearance.
>
> Should not the question be to what degree the creator has control? The
> presentation fidelity issue is not black and white, there are shades of
> gray. I believe that in the long run the winning approach will provide
> the author enough control for a look and feel while allowing the reader
> enough control to adopt the document to their tastes and environment.

Which means that the user must be able to control all presentation
parameters if necessary. However, in most cases one would choose to
render the document using the author's hints. Also, the tools used to
control presentation should be the same one both sides: we're all both
readers and authors, right?

I've started working on a page with references to ideas on HTML style
sheets. See http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Style/

> Would this debate be more constructive if we discussed what control variables
> there are and what level of control each party needs to have?

I think this is the least interesting part for now. First we need to
reach consensus on the power struggle issue. Finding a lean, mean &
clean syntax is also important. The list of possible parameters will
in any case grow as new output media are hooked into the web.

-h&kon