Stylesheets - Re: rendering tables with groups

Author

Re: rendering tables with groups

Sander Tekelenburg

2004-11-16, 7:13 pm

[Crossposted to <news:comp.infosystems.www.browsers.mac> and
<news:comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets>. No follow-ups
specified. Please consider which group(s) your follow-up is relevant to
before hitting that button ;)]

In article <2vso68F2ptd56U1@uni-berlin.de>,
respower <respower@studiors.org> wrote:

> On 2004-11-15, Sander Tekelenburg <user@domain.invalid> wrote:
>
> OK. Either way, the logical relationship I've specified isn't being
> displayed.

More precisely put: the logical relationship you specified is not
displayed in the way you specified. (The logical relationship itself
*is* recognized by WebKit/Safari, as my example shows.)

[Example code reinserted (at bottom) for easier crossreading]
[color=darkred]
> Although it might be made to work in this overly simple example, in
> general I can't do this.

I think you misunderstood what I meant. I meant "CSS can be a useful
tool to make visible that WebKit/Safari does in fact recognize THEAD,
TFOOT and TBODY and t make visible that it ignores the RULES attribute
to TABLE". I was speaking in terms of bug hunting, not in terms of
whatever alternative might be an acceptable solution to you.

You should submit a bug report to Apple (you can use Safari's built-in
function for that) informing them that it would be nice if they'd add
support for the RULES attribute to TABLE (I believe it is not a
*required* attribute for HTML 4.01 conformance). Add your example code
for completeness' sake.

As to how to get the visual presentation you're looking for: drop the
TABLE's BORDER attribute and use CSS to draw borders.

> For instance in my real example the cell
> contents already use color for other purposes. Using it for grouping
> too would be highly confusing.

Indeed.

[...]

> I know essentially
> nothing about CSS, but unless it offers something else I can use in this
> context, it's not sufficient.

To be honest I have never done _this_ particular thing with CSS. But
since you are concerning yourself with presentation, CSS is the only
right tool. I've crossposted to
<news:comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets>. Maybe someone there
has experience with drawing borders in colgroups. (IIRC COLGROUP is to
be non-visible according to the HTML specs, so that might turn out to be
an issue. Check the specs.)

>
> That's a bigger debate than I'm prepared for.

Judging by what you want, you may have to reconsider ;) But only you can
force you :)

> I just want to show

"Show" is the keyword ;) HTML doesn't show, CSS does.

> subgroups of rows and columns inside a table. Seems to me that the
> whole function of borders in a table is grouping, and conversely the
> most obvious way to depict groups is by drawing borders around them.

Agreed.

> This is exactly what I get with other rendering engines. Maybe there's
> another useful way to do this -- if so I'm happy to use it. But I can't
> think of one.

Well, what is your function? To offer content, or to enforce a
presentation? If the first, the way the Web works is it's up to the user
to choose the right tool for the job. If the latter, force your users to
use the right tool for the job. Just realize that as a Web publisher (I
dislike "Web designer") you have no way to enforce any kind of
presentation, ever. While in your user chair you may care about Safari
not supporting RULES, but while in your Web publisher chair, you
shouldn't care one bit. (yes, I know, in practice this is sometimes a
bit more complicated. But this is the starting viewpoint.)

HTH

+++++

Testcase - Safari/WebKit ignores RULES attribute to TABLE:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC
"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd">

<html>
<head>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">

<title>Safari Bug</title>
</head>

<body>

<table border="1" rules="groups" STYLE="background: #FFFFFF; color:
#000000">

<colgroup>
<colgroup span="2">
<colgroup>

<thead>
<tr>
<th><b>COL1</b></th>
<th><b>COL2</b></th>
<th><b>COL3</b></th>
<th><b>COL4</b></th>
</tr>

<tbody STYLE="color: #FF0000">
<tr>
<td>1,1</td>
<td>1,2</td>
<td>1,3</td>
<td>1,4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2,1</td>
<td>2,2</td>
<td>2,3</td>
<td>2,4</td>
</tr>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td>3,1</td>
<td>3,2</td>
<td>3,3</td>
<td>3,4</td>
</tr>

</table>

</body>
</html>

--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/%7Etekelenb/>

respower

2004-11-16, 7:13 pm

On 2004-11-16, Sander Tekelenburg <user@domain.invalid> wrote:
> You should submit a bug report to Apple

Since one of the main reasons for my original post was to determine
whether or not it really is a bug, I'll take that as confirmation that
it is. In your previous post I had the feeling you were suggesting it
wasn't.

> To be honest I have never done _this_ particular thing with CSS. But
> since you are concerning yourself with presentation

I'm really not. I just want _some_ presentation rather than none. If
I'm forced to use css to get any presentation at all, I'm not happy
precisely because I have to wire in a presentation when I have no
interest in doing so.

All I'm expecting is what's described here:

http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html4...uct/tables.html

> Well, what is your function? To offer content, or to enforce a
> presentation?

Logical content. I'm happy to leave the choice of presentation to the
browser as long as that choice is visible. In the current osk WebKit,
it isn't.

respower

2004-11-20, 11:14 pm

Sander Tekelenburg

2004-11-21, 11:18 pm