[Sigia-l] Web Standards and I.A.s

[Tom Trottier]

On Thursday, April 08, 2004 at 13:19,
 <PTrebukov at SpencerStuart.com> wrote:

> 
>   With this approach you can have more then one CSS class which actually
>   provides the same set of styles (<div class="Entity"> could have red
> border and blue background
>   and <div class="Person"> could also have red border and blue
> background).
>   It's could be even good idea in case you want to change something
> eventually but 
>   from development/maintenance point of view having absolutely identical
> classes is 
>   not the greatest idea (especially if it's not documented and you have
> to work with more then one CSS file).

That's not a problem working with CSS.

When creating classes with common attributes to start, you can declare 
them like 
    Person, Entity {text: red; border: thin cyan}
and then classes Person and Entity share the same properties.

To investigate existing CSS, you just change one property outrageously 
to pick out the stuff in the class, eg add BORDER: THICK RED; to the 
property list. There may even be some tools to indicate which styles 
are being applied. There are certainly tools to manage CSS styles 
nicely. Even Dreamweaver tries.

In practice, you would have IA-named styles declared only in one CSS 
file and override any details or set the page layout using different 
names, perhaps in other CSS files. DIVs can be nested, with themselves, 
or all block HTML tags.

Read the CSS Cookbook by Christopher Schmitt 

tOM

> Pavel Trebukov
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Trottier [mailto:tOM at Abacurial.com] 
 
> 
> I suggest that styles (CSS, Ventura publisher, Word, ...) are best used 
> by naming the types of content in the repository output, then creating 
> a style sheet  (eg .css file) with the rules for displaying them. EG, 
> in CSS, use <div class="Entity">xxxx</div>
> 
> The advantage is that the markup language is used just the way it's 
> meant to, marking up the meaning/significance of the text or whatever 
> enclosed, and you don't mix it up with HTML markup, and you can use IA 
> names for consistency. Only the style sheet is used to adjust 
> presentation, and it will be consistent with different repositories or 
> editions of a repository.
> 
> Or use XML with a style sheet - no DIV required.
> 
> It is also easy to program repository output.
> 
> tOM
> 
> On Thursday, April 08, 2004 at 11:20,  <PTrebukov at SpencerStuart.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > 
> >    Using styles for IA needs creates some questions.
> >     For example: 
> >      1. Class is not the only way how to specify styles and pretty 
> > often it is not the best way.
> >         And IA usually is not the person who makes decisions how to 
> > create styles.
> >         So, to rely on specific way to specify styles (like class 
> > name) IA have to at least supervise
> >         this process on all stages.            
> >   
> >      2. What is more important for your project: ability to select all
> 
> > <h2> elements with class "facet" or
> >         create styles in the best way to provide page layout? 
> > Solutions to achieve these goals could be different.
> >         It's better to have an answer from very beginning.
> > 
> >      3. Consider cascading effect of CSS.
> >         Any setting could be overridden buy another setting which is 
> > specified in another CSS file or directly in html file.
> >         And it could be done without any reference to existing class 
> > name (by using element's id for example).
> >         So, if you need just to select all elements of particular 
> > class it will work, but if you are also interested in
> >         specific settings it's not reliable.
> > 
> > 
> > Pavel Trebukov
> > 
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org] On Behalf
> 
> > Of Thomas Vander Wal
> > Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2004 8:42 AM
> > To: Lyle_Kantrovich at cargill.com; sigia-l at asis.org
> > Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] RE: Web Standards and I.A.s
> > 
> > 
> > Lyle,
> > 
> > Yes, we largely agree.
> > 
> > In short Standards impact IAs very little, but having developers that 
> > use Standards provides an IA the ability to have their vocabulary for 
> > the information structure adopted and integrated into the semantic
> ...
> 
> ------- Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur -------
>    ,__@	tOM Trottier +1 613 231-6115
>  _-\_<,		758 Albert St.,Ottawa ON Canada K1R 7V8
> (*)/'(*)		N45.412 W75.714
> <a href="http://Abacurial.com">Abacurial Information Architecture</a>
> ---------------
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> Jefferson 1743-1826)
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------- Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur -------
   ,__@	tOM Trottier +1 613 231-6115
 _-\_<,		758 Albert St.,Ottawa ON Canada K1R 7V8
(*)/'(*)		N45.412 W75.714
<a href="http://Abacurial.com">Abacurial Information Architecture</a>
---------------
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too 
much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
-Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826)