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WWW7: W3C session stream day 2 |
new features of HTML V4.0:
- better support for internationalization through unicode, bi-directional text rendering etc.
- increased accessibility through support for various devices with small or no display, such as handheld PCs or cellular phones, braille devices etc.
- various attributes to describe elements of tables better
- better support for style sheets to separate content from presentation
- support for dynamic pages through scripting e.g. for smart forms
- better support for printing, e.g. to define a group of objects to be printed as one document
- there will be a workshop about the future of HTML in may 1998 in san francisco
MathML is a XML based W3C recommendation since april 1998 to describe mathematical expressions. tools are required to simplify the manipulation of mathematical expressions, such as Amaya or EzMath. While Amaya provides a graphical interface to edit mathematical expressions, EzMath follows a descriptive approach.
why do we need internationalization ? the name "World Wide" implies that this technique should be available everywhere and should cover and cope with any language, scripts, typographic conventions etc. work is done in the internationalization working group.
mechanisms that support internationalization:
- unicode as a common reference HTML V4.0, XML V1.0 and CSS V1.0
- language information in HTML V4.0 and XML V1.0
- language negotiation in HTTP V1.1 and CSS V2.0
- bi-directional rendering in HTML V4.0 and CSS V2.0
- numbering, font composition etc. in CSS V2.0
future work may cover topics such as:
- providing glossaries and dictionaries
- translation assistance
- support for transliteration (script conversion)
- multilingual text search
- internationalization of URIs
- vertical text in CSS
is now a proposed recommendation.
CSS V1.0 plus enhancements:
- media specific style sheets, e.g. audio, printing (braille is not yet implemented)
- downloadable fonts
- positioning
- tables (faster rendering)
- internationalization (bi-directional text)
future projects:
- provide a CSS test suite
- provide a CSS validator
- provide core style sheets for reference or to build on it
this provides a means to have fonts online ready to be downloaded on request when a document is viewed, rather than fonts that have to be installed before a document can be viewed. fonts are cached, but can be restricted to a particular website to protect copyrights. substitute fonts can be specified to reduce the number of fonts to be downloaded.
XSL is based on DSSSL and provides style sheet support for XML, see XML tutorial.
two recent submissions to the W3C for scalable vector graphics.
motivation for DOM:
- take documents apart, perform manipulation on the data such as sorting, computing etc.
- feed data do non-graphical devices, such as voice synthesis
- personalise web pages
3 parts:
- data (HTML or XML)
- programs to manipulate data
- plus a way to tie data and program together: DOM
status of the specifications: working draft.
Amaya is a full featured browser and authoring tool to provide a testbed for the latest implementations in web technologies, supporting HTML V3.2 and part of V4.0, CSS V1.0, PNG, HTTP V1.1, XML V1.0, MathML, Graphics and DOM. it is a WYSIWYG editor supporting several views, such as how it would be displayed by a graphical browser, a text only browser or a structural view.
to the main page of this WWW7 trip report.
production note: these session notes were taken live on a SHARP HC-4500A running Windows CE with Pocket Word. they were then transfered to a notebook running Windows 95 and were slightly reformatted using HoTMetaL V4.0. this document is supposed to be HTML V4.0 compliant.