Posted by Jonathan N. Little on 01/25/06 18:04

Marcus Stollsteimer wrote:

> Jonathan N. Little wrote:
>
>
>>Again No.
>>
>>Okay, let's try this a different way. CSS does *not* replace all
>>HTML attributes, only the attributes with respect to style
>>(presentation) and not structure and content.
>
>
> I am _very_ aware of that, but sometimes it is not possible
> to decide so clearly what is "presentational" and what "structural".
> And apparently the people from W3C _did_ think about introducing
> such a property. (Or am I misinterpreting the cited working draft?)
>
> Anyway, I do not want to argue about this, it's not that important.
>

My intent in not to chastise but to educate. Since you repeat the same
question after being answered gives the impression that you did still
did not understand. The bold text was to emphasize the point for clarity
not to shout. Presentational vs. structural is really not too hard to
determine.

Structural things: <p></p> This is a paragraph, it starts here and ends
here. <h2></h2> This is a heading, it is a level 2 heading.
<table></table>Define tabular data, or <ul></ul><ol></ol >or listed
data. I think you get the point here. Just marks data as to how it
should be treated not how it should look. Say for example <span></span>
Marks some text to be somehow be treated differently but not what that
should be. The style you define for the span will you that . . . the
presentational part

Presentational things: Right justification, left justification. Font
style family or size. Color on background and on and on.

No lets look at your target attribute, would it effect how your link
looks or how it is treated? Most assuredly how it is treated because it
directs what frame the link’s href should effect! So it is structural
not presentational.

The advantage of the separation is we can change how the page looks
without having to re-code all the page just the stylesheet! The old days
with:

<P><FONT FACE="Arial, Helvetica" SIZE=1><CENTER> . . . on every
paragraph on many pages of your website and then you decide you want a
serif font that was bigger and not centered!!! Ugh!

Basically

HTML: Structural things defines what you data is
CSS: Presentational defines how it should look
JAVASCRIPT: Behavior defines events and user interaction

HTH

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

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