xml-dev - RE: FOs again

["Ashvil" <ashvil@i3connect.net>]

> Amy Lewis wrote:
> >
> >That is, there seems to be no overall
> > vision, or integrity, to the documents, so they go on and
> on and on.

Everyone has a slightly different vision of things. The original
proposal (had documented goals) used CSS or DSSSL flow objects which
made sense. Leverage the existing knowledge instead of inventing new
ones. After that things went downhill and thankfully the W3C pulled
out XPath and XSLT recommendations from XSL.


> ...
> > Summary: keep it simple, finish it soon, and focus on display on
> > electronic devices with default behavior for other display types;
> > make it extensible to provide finer control both on display (as
> > desired) and on other devices.
>
> Rick wrote :
> CSS already provides this approach: there is no way that XSL could
> succeed if tried to be an alternative to CSS.

I agree. Simplicity sounds nice but value is what counts. XSL would be
worthless, if it solves the same problems CSS already solves.

> XSL starts from the opposite approach: the people involved have been
> involved in professional publishing or in the development of other
> formatters. The reason that XSLFO needs to pay great attention to
> figuring out what professional quality requires is so that quality
> systems that non-professionals can use can be built.
>

My personal view of xsl:fo is a Open XML file format that is an
alternative to PDF, similar to SVG being an alternative to
Illustrator, Flash, other vector graphics format.

>
> In the long term, we can expect the difference between PC word
> processors and browsers to  become a matter of skin rather than the
> code-base. I would expect the XSL-FO model to be important
> because it
> may provide the way to allow more satisfactory
> cut-and-paste into XML
> applications.
>

Besides cut-and-paste, I would like to see xsl:fo explain how it
integrates or plans to integrate  with other rendering models like SVG
(to add graphics), VoiceML (to add voice annotations), etc.

Regards,
Ashvil


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