Re: XML/SGML

[Leslie Bialler lb136@xxxxxxxx]

As far as the whole Stylesheet issue goes, i have only run into one problem, > and i'm Why this fetishistic use of l.c. "i" for first-person-singular references? Are you reading "The Adventures of Archy and Mehitabel" or something? I regret to have to say this, but it is danged annoying in this context. I would plead with you to cease and desist. > going to run the risk of embarassing myself here by explaining it, but > I found that when i tried to us a style i had created, after using that style i > could no longer count on my default style controlling all the formatting > variables i had set before. It appeared that i would have to define a style for > use, as kind of a body or default style. > Let us say you define a style for a block quotation: ≪SSQUOTE≫. Let us say further that you wish to have a left margin of 15 and a right margin of 65, and, to make this interesting, you want the typeface to be sans serif, let's say CGOMEGA just for fun, and you want a point size of 10. Thus: ≪SSQUOTE,LM=15,RM=65,UF=CGOMEGA,PT=10≫ You will get this value every time you enter a ≪USQUOTE≫ in your document. But: any style that is not defined, or only partly defined, will pick up the default settings from SETTINGS.DFL and/or STARTUP.INT. If, say, you have a style ≪SSTEXT≫ and put in no parameters, and your default left margin is 10, and your right is 70, and your default font is Garamond, and your default size is 11pt, then this is what you will get when you invoke USTEXT. I think, but I can't say for sure, that you might well be better off by defining SSTEXT completely. Then your system defaults will be overridden whenever you invoke USTEXT. I would be interested to know if you will find this to be the case. Since, as I think my correspondence with Rene made reasonably clear, I put everything in a styles file and merge it in, it's been quite some time since I have examined each of the elements therein to see how they operate. And quite truthfully I'm not really all that concerned since, as I have also indicated, XyWrite is merely used as a front end for Quark XPress. Because of this, I could actually define none of the styles and they would still come out the way the book designers wish when filtered through to Quark. > This, to me, ran counter to what i am used to when using a FrameMaker or > Interleaf, or Ventura for that matter. Whatever. This is XyWrite, and that is FrameMaker or Interleaf or Ventura. XyWrite was never meant to be a sophisticated desktop publishing program. > Outside of that portion of text having the character style, the text > should look and format at the original paragraph style. Or at least this is > what i'd expect. > Again, see if you can validate what I have blathered on about above. This should happen if I'm right. > For whatever reason, when i tried to get Xywrite's styles to do this, i > couldn't get it to work that way. As i said earlier, this is more than likely > pilot error on my part, but if anyone could confirm yay or nay on this for me, > i'd appreciate it. > I believe I have. > i would think or i would want my wordprocessor > to be able to have some control over the actual layout portions of my document, > in a precise manner. That includes, but not limited to, font size, paper size, > leading, precise graphic placement, etc. The capabilities to do some of these > things in HTML is kind of kludgy IMO and suggests limited capabilites in HTML > to display these attributes. As i've said, i haven't yet gotten into XML, but, > i would want to be able to control these things in my wordprocessor/publishing > system. If later, i could then output this to XML, for someone else's benefit, > that would be fine. > The point of SGML is that the file not be specific to a word processor or an op. sys. The idea of an SGML file is that the file can be postscripted and sent to a printer for a traditional book, or equally as well be put up on the Web. The point is,

means "There be H1!" In a book it might be 14 point bold, centered Times Roman; on the web it might be 12 pt italic, flush left, Palatino. You are correct about the limitations of HTML. It is essentially a stripped down version of SGML. XML is, or so I have been told, expected to remedy the issue. -- Leslie Bialler Columbia University Press lb136@xxxxxxxx > http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup