Re: Lines in Tables

Michael Johnson (michaelj@relay.relay.com)
Fri, 09 Dec 94 15:19:15 EST


Steve DeRose writes:
>Why start all over when we can start from experience and
>improve on it? At the very least, seeing how it's done before
>will introduce one to a wider range of possibilities.

Actually, what I proposed is based on experience, it just isn't CALS. It is
a slightly more powerful version of the rules and borders controls from IBM
Bookmaster. The RULES attribute in BOOKIE is the same as I proposed. The
FRAME attribute is not as powerful as my suggested changes to BORDERS.

Adding the RULES attribute to <TR> might indeed have merit, but there's a gray
area that needs to be addressed, namely what to do when adjacent rows do not
agree on whether they should have horizontal rules. Should the rule between
the two rows be drawn or not? My personal feeling is that it should be.
Another approach might be to establish that only the trailing (or only the
leading) horizontal rule is to be affected by the RULES attribute for a row.

Michael Johnson
Relay Technology, Inc.