For instance:
<table colspec="L1 C2 C2 L4" units=relative>
becomes:
<table>
<COLSPEC colname=1 colwidth="1*" ALIGN=LEFT>
<COLSPEC colname=2 colwidth="2*" ALIGN=CENTER>
<COLSPEC colname=3 colwidth="2*" ALIGN=CENTER>
<COLSPEC colname=4 colwidth="4*" ALIGN=LEFT>
The motivation given is:
> I would like to see HTML adopt the CALS subset. Not only does this have
> the advantage of existing implementations as well as years of experience
> understanding its semantics, but it has an obvious enhancement path when
> HTML wants real headers and footers, multiple tgroups, individual rule
> segment types, etc. I hope my presentation shows that it isn't much more
> complex than Dave's model.
The semantics of the current HTML 3 proposal seem clear enough, and the
Internet Draft (see http://www.hpl.hp.co.uk/people/dsr) shows how you
can subclass rows for real headers and footers etc. The treatment of
these is browser dependent of course - what's appropriate for Windows
won't be for speech output!
Given, that the philosophy of HTML is to keep it simple, and that
significant numbers of people will want to continue to edit HTML
directly, why should we complicate HTML for the sake of minor
simplifications to CALS filters?
-- Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> tel: +44 117 922 8046 fax: +44 117 922 8924
Hewlett Packard Laboratories, Filton Road, Bristol BS12 6QZ, United Kingdom