----- Original Message -----
From: "David A. Desrosiers" <hacker(a)gnu-designs.com>
>
> > In fact, both CSS style sheets are embedded within the main HTML
> > file so that extra files are unnecessary.
>
> If you have a lot of texts, putting the stylesheet directly
> inside the HTML unnecessarily bloats the content, and removes one of
> the main benefits of CSS.. being able to separate content from
> presentation.
>
> This means that if you have 1,500 works all formatted with an
> internal stylesheet, and you want to change the fonts for one class
> and add some borders around another, and add a selector for a new text
> class... you have to modify 1,500 stylesheets, insteasd of one. Yes,
> you could do all of that with a single perl one-liner, but why should
> you?
Well, in a perfect world, we could guarantee that the separate CSS file is accessible and life is good. Unfortunately, since we can't guarantee the CSS file is there, we decided to embed the CSS inside the HTML. It bloats it somewhat, but it is still smaller than the obligatory PG header information, so I don't feel TOO badly about it. And now we get a fully self-contained file.
>
> > In Mozilla-based browsers, you can switch between the style sheets
> > very easily by clicking the icon in the lower left corner of the
> > browser window.
>
> Or, more correctly, by going to View -> Use Style, because
> there is no such selector in Mozilla or "Mozilla-based browsers" in
> the lower left-hand corner. At least not on my Unix, Linux and Windows
> versions of Mozilla (all current).
>
Now that I think about it, you may be right... In Firefox (which is what I have on this machine), there is no View -> Use Style menu option, but there is the icon in the bottom left corner. *shrug*
> > But for those that WANT to know, clicking the Original Page Numbers
> > style will have all the original page numbers appear in the margin.
>
> Why not also break up the pages with border-bottom on the
> bottom of each respective div, so they look like _actual_ pages.
>
I have a big aversion to taking an electronic document and presenting it as "pages." First and foremost, it is ugly. Second, it is going to wreck havoc whenever the user wants to change font sizes, page sizes, etc. This method allows the "scholar" to have original page number references (which the scholars in the original discussion said was important) without tying the online layout to the limitations of the physical page layout.
> > Now Internet Explorer doesn't seem to have a way to switch styles on
> > the fly, which is a shame, but it just defaults to not showing the
> > page numbers.
>
> Well, that is mostly because MSIE is not a browser, at least
> not according to the standards body which defines how a web browser
> should function, from the socket level all the way on up to the
> presentation level.
>
> MSIE is a file manager, based on an ActiveX control that tries
> to render HTML. It supports HTML3.2 fully, "most" of HTML4, "some" of
> CSS1, hardly any CSS2, and CSS3... whats that?
>
>
You are preaching to the choir here! The only thing I use IE for anymore is to check a new HTML document before posting it to make sure IE isn't mangling it TOO badly.
JHutch
