Re: Whitespace

Paul "S." Wain <Paul.Wain@brunel.ac.uk>
From: Paul "S." Wain <Paul.Wain@brunel.ac.uk>
Message-id: <12447.9401131013@thor.brunel.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Whitespace
To: jtilton@jupiter.willamette.edu
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 1994 10:13:52 +0000 (GMT)
Cc: Paul.Wain@brunel.ac.uk, www-talk@www0.cern.ch
In-reply-to: <Pine.3.88.9401130135.A28935-0100000@jupiter> from "James" at Jan 13, 94 02:02:15 am
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James wrote:
@ (p.s. my mailings to this list keep showing up twice... anyone know 
@ what's going on?  tx)

Opps, my mailing twice was a mistake. I got an error message or 3 so
resent. I appologise to those whose mailboxes I clogged up :)

@ On Thu, 13 Jan 1994, Paul S. Wain wrote:
@
@ > I think that to now turn around and say, "No HTML should only be used to
@ > design text based documents" is, well to say the least, it will
@ > certainly slam the breaks on the rapid advance of the Web. 
@ 
@ I don't think that the Web should be used only to present text-based 
@ documents -- certainly not!  The Web is a joy to view over Mosaic, and 
@ perhaps the first thing that really makes the Internet into an exciting 
@ and accessible resource for people.  As a matter of fact, I don't think 
@ anyone is really arguing for that.
@ 
@ On the other hand, I do think we need to be cautious about trying to turn 
@ HTML into a page layout description.  One of the nice features, IMHO, of 
@ HTML is that the display of the document can be matched easily with the 
@ capabilities of the display device.  Going whole hog into things like 
@ specifying font sizes seems like a mistake, from that vantage point.  Is 
@ the next step font families?  We can provide multimedia authoring -- and, 
@ in fact, have -- without giving the author ultimate control over the 
@ document.

Exactly :) The summary of font usage above is really what I was trying
to say :) But lets try and keep what we have already simple!

@ > 3 - Lets not limit the scope of HTML just because some people ONLY have
@ >     text based machines.
@ 
@ I don't think we should limit the scope, but I also don't think we should 
@ forget them, either.  A well composed document -- even if it takes 
@ advantage of graphics and sounds -- would still be useable on a vt100 
@ screen, I should hope.  So, at the level of the text itself, it makes 
@ sense to not have tags that don't translate well to a vt100 screen.  
@ Graphics and sounds are understandably a whole 'nuther ball game that the 
@ 
@ > HTML is, I think, for slick hypermedia presentations, but it should be
@ > as easy for a novice to create them as an experienced HTML designer.
@ 
@ Anyway, I'll shut up now, and sit back down again, now that I've struck 
@ my blow for the poor defenseless Lynx user :).

Re-reading that final point of mine, I dont think that I stressed my
point on text based usage clearly enough :) I to use Lynx a lot, mainly
from a PC-based telnet session or via modem. Being able to see the
document in these circumstances is a great help.

I think that I should maybe add a bit more to the above summary and sau
that:

Whilst it should be kept in mind that some people only have text based
viewers, please dont let those hinder the graphics based ones from using
the potential of HTML to the full!

P.

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|       Paul S. Wain, (X.500 Project Engineer and WWW/HTTP chappie),      |
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