David Dorward wrote:
> cometaj@c... wrote:
>
> > I am having trouble figuring out how to emulate html table behavior as
> > far as colspan and rowspan goes with my CSS on the XML I am working
> > with.
>
> With current CSS - you can't. Work doesn't appear to have started for the
> module that might be able to do it in CSS 2.

Doh!

> http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/current-work#tables
>
> > It actually looks like a table but the colspan and rowspan does not seem
> > to influence the behavior of cells at the rendering engine level.
>
> They wouldn't - there's nothing magic about the attribute names.
>
> > Do I have to take care of this myself at the CSS level?
>
> Yes.
>
> > If this is the case, how do I go about doing that?
>
> Wait until CSS supports it :)

Is there a way I can recuperate information in XML ( with CSS(1 or 2))
and actually use the values recuperated as values in the CSS stylesheet
(like a variable that would resolve into a string in the CSS at
runtime).

something like (this is pseudocode for what I would like it to do)

CELL[halign]{
  text-align: attr(halign);
}

instead of

CELL[halign="left"]{
  text-align: left;
}

CELL[halign="center"]{
  text-align: center;
}

CELL[halign="right"]{
  text-align: right;
}


That would be a good start :).

>
> You are probably better off transforming the XML into HTML 4.01 Strict
> before serving it up to web browser clients.

Unfortunately impossible given other circumstances. I am currently
using a browser to view the styling output.

Regards
Jean-Francois Michaud