Why do font, etc. instructions appear in XSL templates?

[Moshe Yudkowsky <ms...@bl.com>]

I've been looking at forrest for the past couple of days, and I'll probably 
migrate my current web site sometime today or tommorow.

I am very puzzled by some of the reasoning in the xsl files that I've found, 
however. The files contain instructions that I thought would be properly 
delegated to the CSS files. For example, in common/xslt/fo/document2fo.xls, we have

   <xsl:template match="notice">
     <fo:block
       font-size="10pt"
       text-align="left"
       space-before="20pt"
       width="7.5in"
       font-family="serif"
       border-top="0.25pt solid"
       border-bottom="0.25pt solid"
       padding-before="6pt"
       padding-after="6pt">
       NOTICE: <xsl:apply-templates/>
     </fo:block>
   </xsl:template>

In other words the font size is hard-coded and is not in CSS. It would seem to 
me that a true "separation of concerns" would have this formatting information 
in CSS where it would be easily modified.

So, two questions:

(1) Is there a collection someplace of skins other than the ones in the 
distribution? In particular, I am looking for a skin that uses the CSS files to 
accomplish all font variations, background colors, etc. For that matter, I like 
to use "float" and "position" to align my div blocks.

(2) What is the reason that the XSL contains these font-family instructions? 
"History" is a good reason, by the way. But if it's something deeper I would 
appreciate a 25 word or longer explanation.


-- 
  Moshe Yudkowsky
  Disaggregate
  2952 W Fargo
  Chicago, IL 60645 USA

  <http://www.Disaggregate.com>

Re: Why do font, etc. instructions appear in XSL templates?

[Dave Brondsema <da...@brondsema.net>]

Quoting Moshe Yudkowsky <ms...@bl.com>:

> I would like to thank everyone who replied to my message, both on-list and
> offlist.
> 
> Allow me to modify my question. skins/forrest-site/xslt/html/site2xthtml.xsl
> 
> also contains examples of setting font properties. For example, in the 
> breadcrumb trail section:
> 
> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, Sans-serif" size="2">
> 
> In practice, what this means to me is that I had to start by using the
> template 
> and work my way up in complexity to get the skin for my website. I would have
> 
> liked to start with forrest-site and pared away features I didn't need.
> 
> Again, the question is whether forrest-site is that way for historical
> reasons, 
> or if there's a program-driven reason.
> 

forrest-site hasn't changed much lately; forrest-css should look pretty much the
same, but uses CSS.  krysalis-site is one of the most popular skins; and if you
want to base your skin on one that uses CSS you should also consider tigris-style.

-- 
Dave Brondsema 
dave@brondsema.net 
http://www.brondsema.net - personal 
http://www.splike.com - programming 
http://csx.calvin.edu - student org 

Re: Why do font, etc. instructions appear in XSL templates?

[Moshe Yudkowsky <ms...@bl.com>]

I would like to thank everyone who replied to my message, both on-list and offlist.

Allow me to modify my question. skins/forrest-site/xslt/html/site2xthtml.xsl 
also contains examples of setting font properties. For example, in the 
breadcrumb trail section:

<font face="Arial, Helvetica, Sans-serif" size="2">

In practice, what this means to me is that I had to start by using the template 
and work my way up in complexity to get the skin for my website. I would have 
liked to start with forrest-site and pared away features I didn't need.

Again, the question is whether forrest-site is that way for historical reasons, 
or if there's a program-driven reason.

-- 
  Moshe Yudkowsky
  Disaggregate
  2952 W Fargo
  Chicago, IL 60645 USA

  <http://www.Disaggregate.com>

RE: Why do font, etc. instructions appear in XSL templates?

[Conal Tuohy <co...@paradise.net.nz>]

J.Pietschmann wrote:

> Moshe Yudkowsky wrote:
> > I am very puzzled by some of the reasoning in the xsl files
> that I've
> > found, however. The files contain instructions that I
> thought would be
> > properly delegated to the CSS files. For example, in
> > common/xslt/fo/document2fo.xls, we have
> >
> >   <xsl:template match="notice">
> >     <fo:block
> >       font-size="10pt"
> ...
> > In other words the font size is hard-coded and is not in CSS.
>
> XSLFO does not use CSS.

Perhaps the equivalent SoC could be achieved by moving all the formatting
attributes into named xsl:attribute-sets, then they could be in a separate
file linked with xsl:include, or in a separate pipeline stage even.

Con

Re: Why do font, etc. instructions appear in XSL templates?

["J.Pietschmann" <j3...@yahoo.de>]

Moshe Yudkowsky wrote:
> I am very puzzled by some of the reasoning in the xsl files that I've 
> found, however. The files contain instructions that I thought would be 
> properly delegated to the CSS files. For example, in 
> common/xslt/fo/document2fo.xls, we have
> 
>   <xsl:template match="notice">
>     <fo:block
>       font-size="10pt"
...
> In other words the font size is hard-coded and is not in CSS.

XSLFO does not use CSS.

J.Pietschmann.