CSS 2.1 "Rendered Content"

[dave8421]

Hi,

I'm trying to make sense of the definition for "Rendered Content" in
current CR for CSS 2.1

>Content
The content associated with an element in the source document. Some elements have no >content, in which case they are called empty. The content of an element may include text, and it >may include a number of sub-elements, in which case the element is called the parent of those >sub-elements.

>Rendered content
The content of an element after the rendering that applies to it according to the relevant style >sheets has been applied. The rendered content of a replaced element comes from outside the >source document. Rendered content may also be alternate text for an element (e.g., the value of >the XHTML "alt" attribute), and may include items inserted implicitly or explicitly by the style >sheet, such as bullets, numbering, etc.

Is rendered content what is displayed on the particular media or
device? from the definitions, I got the impression that the rendered
content is referring to the source document and not the particular
media or device where the document is displayed

The definition of "Content" uses the word content inside itself, ...
getting a bit confused

[Harlan Messinger]

da******@hotmail.com wrote:

Hi,

I'm trying to make sense of the definition for "Rendered Content" in
current CR for CSS 2.1

[snip]

Is rendered content what is displayed on the particular media or
device? from the definitions, I got the impression that the rendered
content is referring to the source document and not the particular
media or device where the document is displayed

The distinction being drawn is this: The "content" of an HTML element is
everything that appears between the element's tags (assuming the tags
appear explicitly in the code, or where they would be if they're
optional and aren't used).

<p>This is a <em>sentence</em>.</p>

The content of the P element denoted by the P tags is

This is a <em>sentence</em>.

The content of the EM element denoted by the EM tags is

sentence

"Rendered content" is whatever is displayed in a device. In a visual
browser the rendered content of the first line of HTML above is the
sentence "This is a sentence." with the word "sentence" probably
italicized, depending on the browser and on any style information that
my override the default rendering for EM.

In the case, for example, of an IMG tag:

<img src="attention.gif" width="50" height="40" alt="Warning!">

the content is empty--the IMG element never has content (and no end tag
in non-XML HTML; in XHTML, the tag is made self-closing with a slash at
the end). The rendered content of the IMG in a typical graphical browser
like IE or Firefox or Safari in their default configuration is the image
itself, occupying the space indicated by the dimensions and as may also
be determined by any applicable stylesheet rules. In these same browsers
with images turned off, or in a text-based browser, the rendered content
is the text "Warning!".