[docbook-apps] Re: Simpler XHTML output

[Norman Walsh <ndw at nwalsh dot com>]

/ "Bob Stayton" <bobs@sagehill.net> was heard to say:
| I welcome this suggestion.  I too have wanted a cleaner version of XHTML so
| that CSS can be given full control.  If someone were to write a
| specification for what the XHTML should look like, I would be willing to
| help implement it in XSLT.
|
| Since this XHTML would be dependent on CSS for styling, I think the spec
| would have to include a template for the CSS.

FWIW, this has long been my plan for the XSLT 2.0 stylesheets. When
the current stylesheets were first being developed, it wasn't clear
(to me, anyway) that CSS-aware browsers were widely enough deployed to
reply on CSS. I think times have changed and it makes sense to make
the HTML output as style-free as possible.

The XHTML stylesheets are currently mechanically generated from the HTML
stylesheets.

I'd be reluctant to fork the XHTML stylesheets and maintain them
separately from the HTML stylesheets.

And I'd be reluctant to make large changes to the current HTML output
as there are *a lot* of pages out there that may rely on the current
functionality.

I'm not sure what the right answer is...

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>      | Everything should be made as
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | simple as possible, but no simpler.
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee |

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