"Victor Mote" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 12.06.2004 17:35:04:
> It is no longer a concern of mine that FOP has returned to a monolithic > design, but I think it is a bit unfair to the new developers to imply that > the XSL-FO standard mandates such a design, at least with the reasoning that > has been offered so far. AFAICS, the cited part of the XSL-FO recommendation only mandates that for refinement the formatter needs feedback from the area tree in some situations. It's just a hint to implementors: hey, it's not as simple as it looks - it's not a pure sequential process. That's it. Let's also remember that "refinement" and "area tree" are artifacts used to formally describe the *result* of the formatting process. There is no reason to believe there must be a refinement step or even an area tree as such in an implementation. Of course, directly following the conceptual procedure outlined in the recommendation makes it easiest to validate that the implementation is "right", but I don't see that it necessarily leads to the "best" implementation. Victor's comment (http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=fop-dev&m=107074009107318&w=2) is perfectly valid IMO. Also IMO, design discussions should be about evaluating opportunities in the first place and finding and eliminating showstoppers in the second place. If the benefits of a certain design are important enough and this is seen so by several people, the chances are good that the perceived showstoppers can be eliminated. I think this also applies to Peter's current suggestions. My 2 cents, Arnd -- Arnd Beißner Cappelino Informationstechnologie GmbH
