Forum OpenACS Improvement Proposals (TIPs): Re: TIP #8 (Proposed): Modification of default-master.adp structure.

I think the idea of using div tags is sound. However the idea should be carried further.

"Using ID attribute of DIV tag is proposed in order to enforce uniqueness of an element."

Why force uniqueness of use when using the DIV Class attribute allows any reuse of formatting elsewhere on the page?  One goal in publishing is to create an elegant set of publishing styles that are re-usable as much as possible for consistency.

If the requirement of uniqueness is to prevent redefining label definitions when importing css rules from other sites et cetera, perhaps more unique labels should be used. For example, use oacs-master-top, oacs-slave, oacs-master-bottom instead of master-top, slave, master-bottom.

This is also a good time to consider using alternates to master/slave[1] for primary/secondary etc. since changes are being made anyway, and CSS is less engineering and more "soft" technology related, and apt to be discussed openly in the greater environment of humanity where the interpretation of  master/slave may not be as clearly understood by non-engineers. And sensitivity to using alternates can easily help reduce the potential of creating/increasing tension such as when creating opportunities in situtations where oppressed labor has been an issue.

Also, consider reducing the popular, yet inaccurate, visual orientation of pages at the pre-browser interpretation levels (when for example, the page is interpreted sometimes by a voicesynthesizer and vertical orientation is imaginary). Maybe the styles should be called: oacs-primary-first, oacs-secondary, oacs-primary-last to emphasize that not all interpretation is visual.

1. https://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=111883

Torben,

Intention here was to create a front-matter/main-matter/end-matter structure for a rendered page, where frontmatter is your heading, navigation bar, logos, etc. This is followed by mainmatter that wraps whatever is slave's content. In the end you have the (surprise) end-matter that holds the footer of the page.

In this case uniqueness needs to be stressed -- there should be only zero or one instance of each portion in a single page, otherwise laying the page out in an arbitrary user agent may become ambiguous (e.g. if you have several front-matters -- which should go first?).

This is intended for the page master -- reusable class descriptors could also be setup to provide "precanned" styles for various other parts of the site, but this is beyond the scope of this TIP. I think it relates more to #5.

Naming of styles in the suggested default-master.adp is, obviously, just that -- a suggestion. If decided they could be anything other than that -- we can call them even __OACS_DEFAULT_MASTER_HEADER_DONT_TOUCH_OR_IT_WILL_BITE__ or whatever else...