> Reply-To: terry@ora.com
>
> | From lee@sq.com
> |
> | Here is a summary of the issues I listed, together with diverse other issues
> | that arose whilst discussing aforesaid & aforementioned issues.
> | (Unless I missed someone; please don't waste time saying
> | I left you out -- if your issue isn't here, raise it!)
> | Someone else please take over, I'm gone for 2 weeks.
>
> . . .
>
> | | Tables - must have, work still to do
> | Peter Flynn <pflynn@curia.ucc.ie>
> | What's waiting here?
> | Jon_Bosak@Novell.COM
> | strong suspicion that the issues [...] aren't going to get
> | completely resolved in the next few weeks, whereas tables can be and
> | should be.
> | Joe English <joe@trystero.art.com>
> | For tables, the basic content model seems pretty solid.
> | There was a question about whether <TH> cells should be
> | allowed anywhere in a <TR>; I think this was resolved.
> | There may be questions about the formatting attributes,
> | wrt compatibility with other table models, ICADD in
> | particular. Is the colspec attribute OK?
> | Brian Behlendorf <brian@wired.com>
> | What's left? It seems mostly complete to me, the netscape extensions
> | are all stylesheet-able.
> | [still under discussion, no consensus yet aboutthe details - Lee]
>
> Let's hear it from anyone who doesn't want 3.0 tables, as is today, in 2.1.
>
I'd point out that the SGML Open recommendations included several
suggestions with respect to table models.
To summarize from the SO recommendations to date:
----------------
Having support for tables in HTML 3.0 is an important step forward, and
we encourage the creation of an HTML 2.1 (as has previously been
suggested) if only to bring forward the most crucial aspects of HTML 3
into an earlier spec. (We would place tables and superscript/subscript
support in this category.)
In the long run, we recommend that the HTML 3 DTD use a table model as
similar as possible to those supported by existing products, preferably
a proper subset. . . . . (Our goal would be to propose something which
is a legal subset of CALS, forward compatible with HTML 3 tables and
incorporates the ICADD requirements. We believe this is possible.)
It is our recommendation that the content model therefore become:
<!ELEMENT TABLE -- (CAPTION?, COLSPEC*, TR*) >
<!ELEMENT COLSPEC - o EMPTY -- only exists to hold attributes -->
<!ATTLIST COLSPEC
align (left|justify|center|right|char) "left"
char CDATA #IMPLIED
-- character upon which to align ( such as . or , ) --
charoff NUTOKEN #IMPLIED
-- position of character upon which to align --
colwidth CDATA #IMPLIED
-- e.g., 1.5in, 40pt, or 20* (* to indicate "relative") -->
-----------------------
That is, we recommend removal of the "colspec" and "units" attribute from
table's attlist, and we recommend addition of a "colspec" element.
We also point out the need to clarify various issues such as what
should happen to the cells that are "spanned over" by a vertical
or horizontal span.
paul
Paul Grosso
VP Research, ArborText, Inc.
and
Chief Technical Officer, SGML Open
Email: paul@arbortext.com