Re: SGML Open recommendations on HTML 3
Gavin Nicol (gtn@ebt.com)
Tue, 21 Mar 95 20:37:02 EST
>(Actually, I'd like to see browsers that set column widths
>dynamically, depending on content: it's possible, though obviously
>not easy. Formatting information hard-coded in tables is just as
>distasteful to me as adding format oriented elements to the base HTML
>language. I need tables, and I need them directly in HTML rather than
>captured in dead GIF images, but I don't want to be in the postion of
>having to calculate a lot of column widths that won't work on all
>screens anyway.)
I agree with this. I have heard from many people that such a thing is
impossible, or impractical, but I have not yet heard reasons which
rule it out entirely. There are obviously pathological cases which
could cause problems (tables with horizontal and vertical spanning
come to mind), but I believe that tables could be rendered with at
most 4 passes over the object making them up. Multi-columnular
rendering seems to be just a special case of this (or perhaps vice
versa).
--
NOT speaking for EBT of course.