Monday, June 25, 2007, 11:24:35 AM, Hussein Shafie wrote: > Daniel Dekany wrote: >> >> Also, the CSS margin collapsing bug is fixed. Great! Such a relief for >> everyone who write custom CSS-es and care if the result looks ugly. >> >> So now that it's fixed, I think a few improvements could be done on >> the built-in DocBook CSS. As you (XXE developers) seem to be often >> unwilling to improve stuff that can be improved with customization, >> I'm even offering you to do it myself for free and send the diff, if >> that helps to move things forward. So, a few possible and otherwise >> trivial improvements: >> >> - listitems could have 1.33ex margin-top and margin-bottom; this is >> how list items are typically rendered. (XXE currently and also >> in earlier version renders it like if it would have spacing="compact". >> I guess because with the CSS bug it was difficult to solve normal >> spacing. Now it's easy to do.) >> >> - Implementing spacing="compact" is now far easier, so it could be >> done without creating big mess in the CSS. I think that every user >> who uses it keep reinventing it in its own customization, which then >> doesn't make sense really. And those who don't use spacing="compact" >> are simply not affected. >> >> - Now that the margins of title-s collapse with the margin of the >> previous p, you have lost 1.33ex vertical space before titles (as >> you have exploited the bug). So now it's not very nice. 1.33ex >> should be added to their top margins. >> >> - And... unrelated to the CSS bug, but that html > head > title CSS >> formatting... Could that be fixed? In fact, the whole head should >> shown with non-white background; that's what shows its meaning. >> >> Yes, yes, I know, I can create my customization etc... But a better >> out-of-the-box config is just better. >> > > Thank you for your offer, but we'll not implement the changes you > suggest. This is not a question of amount of work. For now, we are > simply not convinced that such changes are really needed. > > Currently, the CSS style sheets bundled with XXE indeed shows you > the document in a compact way (compact lists, more generally not > much vertical margins, "line-height:normal;", etc). We agree that > you'll never find this in a printed book. Personally you prefer > something ``more spaceful'' and we understand that very well.
Well, it's to some extend the same as with the XHTML title issue (what about that BTW?): You don't respect the XML schema you are working with, instead you stick with some old decision (which was maybe just an arbitrary one) for I don't know why. Although the DocBook "standard" doesn't specify what space should be between "listitem"-s, in practice it's quite clear that they didn't meant them being compact-lists by default. Especially as for that there is spacing="compact" (that you can't show with this CSS). (And anyway consider what's if a listitem contains multiple paragraph... look how it looks with your CSS.) Now you may say that compact VS non-compact is a formatting thing and not a semantical thing, and XXE is for semantical editing. But it's not up to you or me to decide what is semantic and what is just formatting. It's up to the designers of the XML Schema. If something is part of the XML schema, then that's clearly semantic for that kind document. And anyway it is just convenient to see at a glance what did you set compact and what you didn't. Also, it would be important to understand that it doesn't really mater what *you* prefer. I mean, everybody can have his own ideas and taste, even a weird one, but the out-of-the-box CSS should try to address the common taste, which is certainly that lists should be shown similarly as they really will look like, rather than unlike they will look like. (Same with the HTML title... although that's a much more serious deviation from the schema semantic.) If you (Hussein Shafie) have other preferences, fine, then create a customization for yourself. But you don't sell XXE to yourself, do you? > Therefore we encourage you to implement your own customization of > the CSS style sheet. Yes, I can do that (in fact I'm doing that from the beginning), but you hurt your own business really... Anyway, I don't really plant to force this very topic anymore. (It has the danger the you go into a defending position, and them rationality doesn't mater anymore, and then hope lost...) > This is really not difficult and there is a way > to do so that will ``survive XXE upgrades''. See > http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/configure/customizing.html -- Best regards, Daniel Dekany
