Re: Images & mouseovers

At 01:21 AM 9/24/2000 , David Meadows wrote:
>"Kynn Bartlett" <kynn-hwg(at)idyllmtn.com> wrote:
> > For example, if the HWG site were written in XHTML instead of
> > HTML, a single XSLT stylesheet could change not only the
> > appearance of the site (as can be done now in CSS by changing
> > the global style sheet), but also change the structure of each
> > and every page.
>Why would you want to do that? Unlike appearance, structure is a fundamental
>attribute of information. It doesn't seem like something you want to go
>messing with after the fact.

Actually, appearance -is- a fundamental attribute of information
in many cases.  (When we talk about 'separating presentation from
content' it's entirely possible to go too far in one direction!)

As an example of when/why you'd want to do that -- there are a
lot of 'structural' elements built into a page that are, strictly
speaking, not the structure of the 'content' but rather more along
the lines of 'infrastructure'.

For example, if you look at my web site (http://kynn.com/), I
have a lot of funky table cells and other things set up in a very
specific way, that are there to  provide the navigation and
"physical structure" (if you'll pardon the inaccuracy of that term)
of each page.  If I wanted to install a completely different
"structure" -- say, a top-loading navbar with "buttons" and a
different "contact me" setup on the bottom -- and if I'd done it
in XHTML, I could write an XSLT stylesheet to install the new
"infrastructure" easily.  This is essentially using XHTML/XSLT as
a content management system, after the fact.

--Kynn

-- 
Kynn Bartlett                                    mailto:kynn(at)hwg.org
Board Member, HTML Writers Guild                 http://www.hwg.org/
AWARE Center Director                    http://www.awarecenter.org/

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