Fw: center phasing out?

by "Phillip Perry (InterDesign)" <pperry(at)inter-design.net>
Date:	Sun, 5 Sep 1999 19:24:41 -0400
To:	"Cindy Stanley" <stanleysupport(at)prodigy.net>, <hwg-basics(at)hwg.org>
	todo: View Thread, Original
>From the W3C's specifications Section 15.1.2 titled Alignment. You can look
it up at www.w3.org ....for those who don't already have the address :)

Phil
.......


.........Attribute definitions

align = left|center|right|justify [CI]
     Deprecated. This attribute specifies the horizontal alignment of its
     element with respect to the surrounding context. Possible values:
        o left: text lines are rendered flush left.
        o center: text lines are centered.
        o right: text lines are rendered flush right.
        o justify: text lines are justified to both margins.

The default depends on the base text direction. For left to right text, the
default is align=left, while for right to left text, the default is
align=right.

DEPRECATED EXAMPLE:
This example centers a heading on the canvas.

<H1 align="center"> How to Carve Wood </H1>

Using CSS, for example, you could achieve the same effect as follows:

<HEAD>
 <TITLE>How to Carve Wood</TITLE>
 <STYLE type="text/css">
  H1 { text-align: center}
 </STYLE>
<BODY>
 <H1> How to Carve Wood </H1>

.............

----- Original Message -----
From: Phillip Perry (InterDesign) <pperry(at)inter-design.net>
To: Cindy Stanley <stanleysupport(at)prodigy.net>; <hwg-basics(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 05, 1999 7:01 PM
Subject: Re: center phasing out?


Mastering HTML 4.0 by Deborah S. Ray and Eric J. Ray says:

"<DIV>.........Attribute Information for ALIGN......Standard:    HTML 3.2;
deprecated
in HTML 4.0 in favor of Style Sheets"

That's from a book copyrighted 1997, so if you have a book from 99 that says
the same thing, I'd say align= shouldn't be used....if you want to be html
4.0 specific. I've used <div style="text-align:center"> for a long while
now. I know, it's not stable enough for certain browsers, but I'm risking
it, But only on "my" pages. I use align=center for clients.

Phil
----- Original Message -----
From: Cindy Stanley <stanleysupport(at)prodigy.net>
To: <hwg-basics(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 05, 1999 5:39 PM
Subject: Re: center phasing out?




>From: Ben Bradley <kingben(at)bigfoot.com>
>>center is being phased out?


From: Cindy Stanley <stanleysupport(at)prodigy.net>
>It is still valid.

Ben wrote:
>>damn - I use that all the time as it is the most useful way to control
>>alignment instead of using P align="" or div/span align=""

Cindy wrote:
><DIV align="center"> is just as easy to use :-)

Okay ... I am backing up a bit in my suggestion made above. Now, "I"
look for more information on this DIV tag.

In one book (IDG, HTML 4 for Dummies), it does not read that the align
attribute of the DIV tag has been deprecated.

In another book (Sams Teach Yourself Web Publishing w/ HTML 4,
Professional Reference Edition, copywrite 1999), it reads:

"A slightly more flexible method of aligning text elements (unquote: you
can also use DIV align= to align headings, paragraphs, images, tables,
etc) is to use the DIV tag. It includes several attributes. Among these
attributes is ALIGN (deprecated in HTML 4.0)".

Now, in this same book (Sams Teach Yourself Web Publishing w/ HTML 4),
in the appendix section, it does NOT read that the align attribute of
the DIV tag is deprecated.

So, as it stands now, at least for me, I would take this into
consideration and assume that the align attribute of the DIV element is
deprecated, in favor of style sheets.

Bottom line, for me that is, that when the CENTER and DIV align= tags
become totally obsolete, is when I would begin using style sheets for my
alignment. Which, in any case, was the route I would eventually take
anyhow. I do not feel comfortable enough w/ the way some browsers handle
style sheets at this time to mark-up my site using CSS. But, CSS is
getting there soon enough, and so am I. Until then, I try to write valid
HTML 4.0, which the CENTER  and DIV align=  is still valid.

Can anyone provide solid documentation, url or book, that reads that the
align attribute of the DIV element is deprecated in HTML 4? I am leaning
more towards that it is, due to the source of the last book mentioned
above.

--
Cindy K. Stanley
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