Joe Francis wrote:
> Why can't we just continue to abuse html (without css) for these rich
> text clients? It's actually a lot easier to get it right, to get
> smaller implementations, to get faster implementations, and to get
> backwards compatibility. What I don't understand is what css buys us in
> this kind of world.
I see your point but I have a quite long list of arguments in favor of CSS :
a) CSS allow a much better control of the rendering with media independance.
It is possible with one structure to have multiple views on multiple devices
as different as screen, printer, cell phone, PDA, tty, braille device can be.
b) CSS allow a much more precise control of the visual rendering. A lot of concepts
present in CSS cannot be simulated with HTML (paddings for instance or complex
borders).
c) CSS allow visual effects that users need : first-letter, first-line, ...
d) CSS are simple, in fact more simple than HTML styles. But I agree with you that
the association HTML document containing HTML styles + CSS is too complex for
powerful editing solutions.
I guess that your next question is : but do users really need such features for
instance in mail/news ? The answer is yes, definitely yes. Yesterday in the plane
between Paris and Boston, a guy previous row was browsing his Lotus Notes mailbox
and answering to messages. He was not a tech guy. He was using very nice rendering
effects and, by jove!, the documents were great. Give users the ability to make nice
things (= things that can impress the reader on the other side of the network) and
they will use it. And if they see it somewhere else, they'll want it.
</Daniel>
