Re: <PAGE> proposal

BearHeart/Bill Weinman ([email protected])
Fri, 22 Dec 1995 13:55:05 -0600


At 02:00 pm 12/22/95 -0500, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
>This is a proposal for a simple extension to HTML.

[ . . . ]

>I therefore propose a new tag, <PAGE>. When the browser encounters this
>tag, it should fill the display area with blank lines to the bottom. The
><PAGE> tag should also alter the scroll-forward behavior of the browser so that
>the space created by <PAGE> expands during scrolling to fill the display
>area until it is entirely blank, at which point the next scroll-forward
>skips to-of-display to just past the <PAGE> tag.

I like this proposal, but I would suggest that <PAGE> be
a container as this would fit in more with the style and spirit
of HTML.

Text that is within a <PAGE></PAGE> container would behave
as you have described, with the distinction that the end-of-page
behavior would take place upon reaching the terminating </PAGE>
tag. Additionally, formatting attributes (like ALIGN=RIGHT) could
take place in the <PAGE> tag and set a style for the page.

Other containers, like <P> or the pointless kludge <DIV>, could
be used to temporarily modify the attributes of <PAGE> and then the
behavior would revert back to that of the <PAGE> when the suborniate
container is terminated. This could actually be a very elegant way
to implement some styles, although it's not a complete replacement for
a style-sheet.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
* BearHeart / Bill Weinman
* [email protected] * * http://www.bearnet.com/ *
* Author of The CGI Book: * http://www.bearnet.com/cgibook/ *
* 'Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers. --Shakespeare