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This Could be Big: Decentralized Web Standard Under Development by W3C

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Re: This Could be Big: Decentralized Web Standard Under Development by W3C

#61

Post by olavk »

flomo wrote: post #56
olavk wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you in general, but not in the case of CSS. The CSS layout model were indeed based on exactly the layout properties of "presentational HTML" which people were using for style and layout at that time. It was just made more fine grained, and separated from the markup. For example, the much hated "float/clear" layout model were based on the align="left|right" and clear="left|right" attributes which Netscape…

display:table- always felt more like a hack than as something part of the design. As in "Oh, we forgot to model certain properties of tables that numerous websites actually use. Here's a workaround that imitates a table cell until we get around to figuring it out. PS: tables are still bad."

> PS: tables are still bad.

Tables are not bad.

CSS purists state that using table markup purely for layout purposes (e.g. for positioning a page footer) is bad, because it violates the separation between content and presentation. In that case display:table-* will give you the same layout (neither worse nor better!) but without requiring any specific markup in the html.

But this poses a dilemma for web developers, because display:table-* is not supported by all browsers, so some specifc kinds of layout can only be achieved with table markup.

Developers had to choose between (1) compromising the layout (2) compromising the semantic/style separation or (3) use complex workaround like the CSS frameworks, which tried to emulate the table-layout model without requiring display:table support in the browser. Neither is optimal.

Re: This Could be Big: Decentralized Web Standard Under Development by W3C

#62

Post by BrandonM »

haberman wrote: post #30
haberman wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What solution does CSS offer for three-column layout (with a resizable center column) that is remotely as simple as: Fixed left column. Liquid center column Fixed right column.

I looked into CSS tables a bit more, and this seems to be how you'd write the above: .table { display: table; width: 100%; } .tr { display: table-row; } .left-column { display: table-cell; width: 200px; } .middle-column { display: table-cell; } .right-column { display: table-cell; width: 200px; } Fixed left column. Liquid center column. Fixed right column. This is definitely a huge improvement over the CSS box model.…

That's so much more verbose than using tables. What do you gain?

Re: This Could be Big: Decentralized Web Standard Under Development by W3C

#63

Post by Havoc »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #41
EGreg wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't store other's people data, who will? If those people store their own data, how will you get it if they disconnect their computer from the network, or it goes down? And more importantly, if their computer is the only place to get the data, then how do you make the "host" of the data untraceable?

I don't know. I guess the answer to your last question is that I don't want a system that thwarts all kinds of social filtering or control and at the same time makes it impossible to trace people who commit horrific crimes. I think we want to decentralize social control, not abolish it completely.

"horrific crimes": Exactly. That was my 2nd thought on reading the headline. (1st was Awesome). We need some form of control, to prevent the worse of it. Perhaps some sort of community voting/blacklisting?

Re: This Could be Big: Decentralized Web Standard Under Development by W3C

#64

Post by [deleted] »

BrandonM wrote: post #62
haberman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked into CSS tables a bit more, and this seems to be how you'd write the above: .table { display: table; width: 100%; } .tr { display: table-row; } .left-column { display: table-cell; width: 200px; } .middle-column { display: table-cell; } .right-column { display: table-cell; width: 200px; } Fixed left column. Liquid center column. Fixed right column. This is definitely a huge improvement over the CSS box model.…

That's so much more verbose than using tables. What do you gain?

[deleted]

Re: This Could be Big: Decentralized Web Standard Under Development by W3C

#65

Post by kleiba »

haberman wrote: post #25
rimantas wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CSS offers many solutions to layout. The problem is what a lot of web surfers are stuck with old versions of some particular browser.

What solution does CSS offer for three-column layout (with a resizable center column) that is remotely as simple as: Fixed left column. Liquid center column Fixed right column.

That is because you picked an example where an old school HTML table shines and CSS looks complicated. But likewise there are many other things you can do with CSS that are pretty hard or impossible to do without it.

If webpages were always only made of box-like structures, CSS would have never made it. But you will admit that it offers a web designer much more flexibility.

That flexibility comes at a cost though, because some examples (like yours) that were very easy to realize with the very limited layout options pure HTML offered have now become more difficult. But that's because it provides a more general approach that takes care of many problems, not just three-column layout, and must thus be flexible. And flexible is what old timer HTML was not.

I'm not saying that CSS is the best or even a very good solution to the problem. I'm sure there are a lot of different approaches how to address the general problem of dividing content and layout. But it's there now, and it's bearable, I think.

Besides... all of what I wrote has nothing to do with the w3c :-)

Re: This Could be Big: Decentralized Web Standard Under Development by W3C

#66

Post by yid »

kerryfalk wrote: post #39
Groxx wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like this: #left{ float:left; width:200px; margin-right: -200px; } #right{ float:right; width:200px; margin-left: -200px; } #middle{ float: left; margin-left: 200px; margin-right: 200px; } People tend to avoid this relatively simple solution because of the double-left-margin bug in IE 5 & 6, but that's getting to be an excessively old set of browsers. And even then, it's usually fixed with a "display:inline;" on the…

Or, to make it _really_ simple: 1 2 3 div.column { margin: 10px; width: 200px; float: left; } EDIT: Missed the key constraint, resizable center column. What I have above won't work for that, but shows that replacing tables isn't very difficult.

Nope, not quite. Resize your window to less than 600px and see what happens.

Re: This Could be Big: Decentralized Web Standard Under Development by W3C

#67

Post by mdaniel »

BrandonM wrote: post #62
haberman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked into CSS tables a bit more, and this seems to be how you'd write the above: .table { display: table; width: 100%; } .tr { display: table-row; } .left-column { display: table-cell; width: 200px; } .middle-column { display: table-cell; } .right-column { display: table-cell; width: 200px; } Fixed left column. Liquid center column. Fixed right column. This is definitely a huge improvement over the CSS box model.…

That's so much more verbose than using tables. What do you gain?

Without actually trying that code, my guess is that unlike a formal "table", those 3 div tags will have different page-wrap behavior (e.g. not intra-div, but the wrapping of the div elements with respect to the screen width).

That may not appear to be a big deal, but try loading that page on a mobile device and it will become a bigger deal.

Re: This Could be Big: Decentralized Web Standard Under Development by W3C

#68

Post by mattmanser »

olavk wrote: post #61
flomo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

display:table- always felt more like a hack than as something part of the design. As in "Oh, we forgot to model certain properties of tables that numerous websites actually use. Here's a workaround that imitates a table cell until we get around to figuring it out. PS: tables are still bad."

> PS: tables are still bad. Tables are not bad . CSS purists state that using table markup purely for layout purposes (e.g. for positioning a page footer) is bad, because it violates the separation between content and presentation. In that case display:table-* will give you the same layout (neither worse nor better!) but without requiring any specific markup in the html. But this poses a dilemma for web developers, b…

I think you're misremembering history. It's not bad because 'it violates the separation between content and presentation', it's bad because you end up with tag soup. The table's demise was purely that it was too hard to maintain in anything more than a trivial layout. When you started getting down to your third nested table it was a friggin' nightmare. Also cells and rows had weird quirks as well as missing properties where you'd then have to nest a span in every cell just to get it behaving properly. Oh and also the occasional sacrifice to the dark god of 'table-layout:fixed'.

The rest of it though I agree with you.

Re: This Could be Big: Decentralized Web Standard Under Development by W3C

#69

Post by olavk »

BrandonM wrote: post #62
haberman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked into CSS tables a bit more, and this seems to be how you'd write the above: .table { display: table; width: 100%; } .tr { display: table-row; } .left-column { display: table-cell; width: 200px; } .middle-column { display: table-cell; } .right-column { display: table-cell; width: 200px; } Fixed left column. Liquid center column. Fixed right column. This is definitely a huge improvement over the CSS box model.…

That's so much more verbose than using tables. What do you gain?

It gives you separation of concerns between content structure and presentation. This allows you to adapt the presentation for different audiences. For example, on a phone with a small screen, you might not want a three-column layout, but just have everything in one column. You can do that with an alternative style-sheet.

Additionally, you don't have to confuse screen readers with a table which don't really contain tabular data. So it also more accessible.

Re: This Could be Big: Decentralized Web Standard Under Development by W3C

#70

Post by EGreg »

Havoc wrote: post #63
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. I guess the answer to your last question is that I don't want a system that thwarts all kinds of social filtering or control and at the same time makes it impossible to trace people who commit horrific crimes. I think we want to decentralize social control, not abolish it completely.

"horrific crimes": Exactly. That was my 2nd thought on reading the headline. (1st was Awesome). We need some form of control, to prevent the worse of it. Perhaps some sort of community voting/blacklisting?

one man's horrific crime against the government is another man's struggle for freedom. A tool isn't all things to everyone
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