LYNX-DEV Style Sheets (was: Addressing mail to your friends)

[David Woolley]

Foteos wrote:

> is only "seeming".  Their hope was too move the richer HTML 3.0 capabilies
> to style sheets.  That is why, at the time of the Lynx v2.6 release
> (Sept. 2, 1996), implementing style sheet support and then incorporating
> the chartrans mods "seemed" like they should be the highest priorities.

Having tried to use style sheets in a CGI application that the marketing
department says must look very glossy on MSIE 3 and 4, and pretty glossy
recent Navigators++, I've come to the conclusion that Microsoft don't 
really believe in style sheets.

Their support in MSIE 3 is minimal and generally broken (some of those
things advertised to work only work in separate sheets and some only
in embedded STYLE sections; some things work, but differently from the
equivalent inline physical markup**).  There is no obvious improvement in
MSIE 4, but as the brief requires MSIE 3 support, I've no budget to 
really investigate this.  Netscape 4 seems to act on embedded font size
information that is ignored by MSIE, which does seem to recognize it in
separate sheets.  I haven't got any of these to recognize graphic bullet
point symbols (although I'm not sure whether I actually tried that on
Netscape 4, rather than 3; the price of MSIE(!) makes it the marketing
department's main target).

My guess is that Microsoft, probably correctly, believes that most would
be authors like the ablility to be comfortable with the abstract concept of
logical formatting; experience suggests that very few companies actually
make use of even the limited style capabilities in MS Word, and even
graduates can have difficulty with even hard versus soft line breaks
in word processors.

My guess is that the deprecated physical tags will take a very long time
in dying.  In fact, the only way I can see them really going is if the
next generation of authoring tools either internally generate enough
classes to cover all the different styles used, or uses id= to make style
apply to individual tags, but just be separated.

"Wizards" may help for the bottom-most end of the market, but they are
already trying to do things which the current generation of browsers can't
do with style sheets (e.g. the graphic bullet markers, and graphic rules).

Don't get me wrong; I think style sheets are a good thing; I just don't 
think the factors that drive the current browser market will allow them
to become a priority with Microsoft, and probably Netscape.  My guess, is
that, for a long time, they will there to get a tick on the compliance 
schedule when big companies decide on purchases; this is a common fate
of standards.

++ in a lot of markets, commercial organisations aren't selling new function,
but rather a warm feeling that the customers are using the latest technology.
The competition isn't as much between a Lynx friendly version and the glossy
version, but between the conventional implementation that the customer has
already paid for and the glossy one that they can be convinced to use to 
replace it, enuring continued revenue.  Generally, the ideal of the
market establishing the best use of resources is always distorted by
companies trying to maintain a stream of revenue; Microsoft seem to
be particular exponents of this strategy.

Personally, I would judge things by effective communication using as
widely supported features as possible, but commerce's aims are new sales,
not commmunication.

** Physical appearence is very important to the marketing people; the 
initial sale is likely to be made on the basis of a short demonstration in
a trade exhibition, or on the road.  HTML is being used because it is
fashionable, or because there are "free" (bundled) browsers, which provide
a lot of the client infrastructure, rather than because of any deep belief
in its desirability or suitability.

PS On standards.  Most "standards" in the information technology area are
actually strongly distorted by the suppliers' self interest; they are the
people who are able too fund participation in the standardisation process.
The potential consumers are often to fragmented, and may not be fully
aware of the issues ("how it works" is marketting speak for operating
instructions, not for a discussion of implementation issues).
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