[pmwiki-devel] Default Skin: Switch to CSS Table?

Mon Jun 2 12:00:10 CDT 2014

Unless there are stats that there is a significant percentage of IE6/7
users for PmWiki, I think the default skin should be tableless, with the
IE6/IE7 skin documented and available.

Given that -- for IE usage only -- IE6/7 share is only around 7%, I don't
think its a good default option.
(source -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Internet_Explorer#Desktop_market_share_by_year_and_version
)

-Michael Paulukonis
http://www.xradiograph.com
<http://goog_2112721603>Interference Patterns (a blog)
<http://www.xradiograph.com%5Cinterference>
@XraysMonaLisa <https://twitter.com/XraysMonaLisa>
http://michaelpaulukonis.com
<http://www.BestAndroidResources.com>

Sent from somewhere in the Cloud
(hearthrug, by the fender)

On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 3:25 AM, Petko Yotov <5ko at 5ko.fr> wrote:

> I have reviewed this skin. The changes from the default skin are indeed
> very minimal: it simply replaces the <table>, <tr> and <td> tags with <div>
> tags, and inserts 3 instructions in the skin css file to display these
> <div> elements as if they were a table.
>
> I believe this will make it look exactly the same, pixel for pixel,
> compared to the current default skin, for browsers that support CSS 2.1
> (most browsers since 2006, MSIE since 2009).
>
>  http://caniuse.com/#search=css%20table
>
> It will not look the same with MSIE 6 and 7, where the main page content
> will appear pushed down below the bottom of the sidebar.
>
> Do you think it is better to replace the default skin, or to distribute
> PmWiki with both skins?
>
> Petko
>
>
> H. Fox writes:
>
>> I'm spending some time on this because I think a lot of people in the
>> PmWiki community would want to improve the default skin so it uses CSS
>> for separating the template design from the semantics of the wiki
>> content.
>>
>> One fantastic charastic of PmWiki is that upgrading rarely breaks
>> things.  I don't know whether hurting compatibility with Intnernet
>> Exploer 6 & 7 is worth having better semantic structure by not putting
>> the wiki sidebar and page content inside HTML Table.  This post has
>> some information for everyone to consider, if interested.
>>
>> Some background...
>>
>> I worked on the PmWiki default skin in the past. As I recall, there
>> was discussion on the lists about it, and by this I mean aside from
>> the periodic discussion that would pop up about why a table shouldn't
>> be in there.
>>
>> I learned a lot by contributing to the development of the skin. Pm was
>> extraordinarily helpful guiding me along. I'm amazed the skin from
>> 2006 has lasted, virtually unchanged, into 2014.(*note)
>>
>> Because I spent so much time working on the skin I recognize why the
>> skin is the way it is, pretty much line-by-line. Pm wanted the skin to
>> be an easily-understandable starting point for someone to build upon,
>> while providing a consistent appearance in lots of browsers on lots of
>> platforms (cross-browser compatibility).
>>
>> One important lesson I learned was: cross-browser compatibility is a
>> vastly un-appreciated art!
>>
>> We used a browser-compatibility testing service called "BrowserCam",
>> now defunct, to see screenshot images that showed how various browsers
>> on various platforms rendered the skin as it developed. BrowserCam
>> screenshots could be _brutal_ about exposing weaknesses in a given
>> HTML/CSS layout. Chunks of content might disappear, unexpectedly move
>> or resize, or render oddly in some other completely unexpected manner.
>>
>> Summary:
>> At the time the default skin was created people wanted to see the
>> table removed for "tableless web design", but that would *definitely*
>> have reduced cross-browser compatibility beyond a level Pm was
>> comfortable with, so the table remained.
>>
>> Flash forward to the present...
>>
>> There's a feature of CSS 2.1 (and newer) called "The CSS table model"
>> documented at http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/tables.html#table-display .
>> From that page,
>>
>>   "The CSS table model is based on the HTML4 table model,
>>   in which the structure of a table closely parallels the
>>   visual layout of the table."
>>
>> This feature of CSS enables us to replace the HTML table with a CSS table.
>>
>> table ->   { display: table }
>> tr    ->   { display: table-row }
>> td    ->   { display: table-cell }
>>
>> Some may say the proposed template at
>> http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Skins/DefaultSkinWithoutTable is not a
>> tableless design, rather it's a still-tabled design that substitutes a
>> CSS Table for the HTML table. Possibly, but I think a CSS table is
>> distinctly different from a HTML table. The difference between {
>> display: table } and <table> is akin to the difference between {
>> font-weight:bold } and <strong>.
>>
>> Switching to a CSS table *will* break the design in some of the "long
>> tail" of old browsers the default skin supports. Most notably IE6 and
>> IE7 will not render CSS tables properly.
>>
>> On the other hand, not all user agents are browsers.  Machines
>> (notably web crawlers) and screen readers shouldn't be overlooked;
>> removing the HTML table may help them.
>>
>> It boils down to
>>  - whether the the CSS Table will become interpreted as a
>>   "presentational" table rather than a "semantic" table, and
>>  - whether separating semantics from presentation is important
>>    enough to justify reducing compatibility with a tiny fraction
>>    of browsers.
>>
>> I think the CSS Table will be interpreted as a presentational table
>> and the switch would be, when everything is considered, an
>> improvement.
>>
>> Hagan
>>
>> (*note)  As I wrote nearly a year ago, the skin lacks Responsive Web
>> Design and needs better support for mobile devices. It's even more
>> true now.  I still believe there could be small changes that would
>> improve mobile-usability without compromising the skin's goals.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> pmwiki-devel at pmichaud.com
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>>
>
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