<colgroup><co l class="behold"> </colgroup>

[Roedy Green]

The only browser I have encountered that supports
<colgroup><co l class="behold"> </colgroup>
to apply a CSS style to a whole column, is Microsoft Internet
Explorer. I have been told it SHOULD NOT do so, since this is not
part of the specification.

How then to you apply styles to entire columns? Surely you don't have
to write

<td class="behold"o n every row item.

--

Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
The Java Glossary
http://mindprod.com

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Sherm Pendley wrote:

"Jukka K. Korpela" <jk******@cs.tu t.fiwrites:

>Primarily, a value specified in some other style sheet being
applied will be used, by certain priority rules.

It's called "specificit y," not "priority."

Which "it"? "Priority" is a common English word and just fine in an informal
description.

"Specificit y" is a technical term used in CSS specifications to refer to
_one_ feature of the priority rules, also known as "cascading rules", which
is a fairly misleading metaphor.

Did you think that specificity alone determines which value will be used?
Then you are quite wrong and should read a good book on CSS.

Please refrain from giving
advice concerning something about which you have no clue.

Do you think you are funny?

[Sherm Pendley]

"Jukka K. Korpela" <jk******@cs.tu t.fiwrites:

Do you think you are funny?

In general, or in the post to which you're responding? Are you using
the word "you" in the singular or the plural sense? What about the
word "funny" - do you intend to ask someone (me?) if they believe
their post to be humorous, or strange?

Your question, as written, doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.
Don't you realize that wasting everyone's time with such illiterate
gibberish is disrespectful and insulting? Is a well-written question
too much to ask for? Why are you attempting to write in English when
you obviously haven't the slightest clue how to do so properly?

sherm--

--
My blog: http://shermspace.blogspot.com
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Sherm Pendley wrote:

Don't you realize that wasting everyone's time with such illiterate
gibberish is disrespectful and insulting?

It seems that you have stopped writing about CSS, which might be an
improvement, since last time you tried to write about CSS (at least
nominally) you made a foolish personal attack _and_ presented quite wrong
information about CSS.

I will take the opportunity to thank you for informing us so clearly that
your posts can be ignored without losing anything but crap. I would have
sent this personally to avoid wasting other people's time, but your email
address looks forged, and that's a sufficient reason for not trying to mail
to it.

[Sherm Pendley]

"Jukka K. Korpela" <jk******@cs.tu t.fiwrites:

but your email address looks forged

On what basis did you come to that conclusion? You didn't even try
it. Once more, you arrogantly assume to know everything. And, once
more, such assumptions do nothing but make you look foolish.

You have nothing useful to say here, so why not just leave?

sherm--

--
My blog: http://shermspace.blogspot.com
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net

[Roedy Green]

On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:00:15 -0400, Joshua Cranmer
<Pi*******@veri zon.invalidwrot e, quoted or indirectly quoted someone
who said :

>I make this remark to hit one key point: an element cannot
have two parents.

But that is not a sensible restriction. I am not doubting you that is
the way it is, but I am saying it is simply not good enough.

Pages are TWO dimensional. That does not fit the current single
inheritance paradigm.

It is not rocket science to extend the syntax to give you the ability
to apply styles and classes to entire columns, or even parts of
columns.

It is prissy academic attitudes that prevent the W3C people from
implementing this practical necessity because they are in love with
the beauty of the current formalism.
--

Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
The Java Glossary
http://mindprod.com

[Joshua Cranmer]

Roedy Green wrote:

Pages are TWO dimensional. That does not fit the current single
inheritance paradigm.

Suggest a syntax as to how to designate an element as having two
parents. Suggest APIs for the DOM that are both backwards-compatible and
capable of having multiple parents. And that's only the beginning.

Tables are the only place where this really happens, but there is no
real way to actually implement a table ideally. Even in the first
versions of HTML, it didn't work too well, because SGML has a similar
one-parent binding.

And as much as you would like to ignore backwards compatibility, the web
is one place where ignoring it will land you in very hot water, as the
Trident development team has no doubt discovered.

It is not rocket science to extend the syntax to give you the ability
to apply styles and classes to entire columns, or even parts of
columns.

Make a syntax and suggest it to the WHATWG HTML or W3C CSS mailing lists
(depending on how you do it). See what the reception is.

It is prissy academic attitudes that prevent the W3C people from
implementing this practical necessity because they are in love with
the beauty of the current formalism.

I don't think anyone's happy, let alone in love, with the table status
quo. But, as the saying goes, the mark of a good compromise is that
everyone's unhappy.

The primary detracting point is that what is being proposed would need
to remake the core of CSS or HTML/DOM. It's not "prissy academic
attitudes" but the reality of the difficulties of making a layout engine
that is both correct and fast, among other not-quite-so-important
characteristics .

--
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not
tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth

[Harlan Messinger]

Roedy Green wrote:

On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:00:15 -0400, Joshua Cranmer
<Pi*******@veri zon.invalidwrot e, quoted or indirectly quoted someone
who said :

>I make this remark to hit one key point: an element cannot
have two parents.

But that is not a sensible restriction. I am not doubting you that is
the way it is, but I am saying it is simply not good enough.

The HTML document model is a tree, so by definition every node except
the root has exactly one parent. It's inherent in the language.
Therefore, it's as good as it's going to be.

Pages are TWO dimensional. That does not fit the current single
inheritance paradigm.

Design a new non-tree-based markup language and see about getting it
adopted.

It is not rocket science to extend the syntax to give you the ability
to apply styles and classes to entire columns, or even parts of
columns.

It is prissy academic attitudes that prevent the W3C people from
implementing this practical necessity because they are in love with
the beauty of the current formalism.

I've already seen others explain to you the *practical* problems
involved in what you're wishing for, so for you to ascribe what you
perceive as shortcomings to "prissy academic attitudes" shows that you
weren't paying attention.