From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 15:38:33 +0000 From: Andy Newman Message-ID: References: , <200007181831.TAA12571@whitecrow.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: [9fans] mothra Topicbox-Message-UUID: e5e027a0-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Steve Kilbane wrote: >For doing the translation, perhaps a leaf could be >taken from troff's book, and have subcomponents of the page >translated into something else - the underlying, internal >language. They are - boxes. CSS2 defines a layout mechanism based on boxes with different layout characteristics. A modern browser, e.g, Mozilla, maintains and transforms trees which eventually get processed to draw something. The document is a tree - HTML or XML or something, there is a frame representation (the boxes). Frame generation is controlled by style sheets which also specify other attributes of the presentation. Frames are then processed by the layout machinery to generate actual presenation commands. There are numerous types of frames and numerous rules for how they combine when positioned on some surface. Also remember that HTML specifies interactive elements (and most sites use them) and there's tables thrown in for good measure and they have their own particular needs. JavaScript these days is for manipulating the trees, i.e, dynamic HTML, where they CSS attributes get changed in response to some event. Anyone who's done a page layout program or formatter of any kind will appreciate the complexity of handling modern HTML. If you ignore style sheets it isn't too bad. The modern rules make it harder. At least it gives the processors and memory manufacturers cause for celebration. Can't wait for a fully XML enabled watch, probably generate enough heat to keep my wrist warm.