Re: XML and Lout already work well

[franck]

Valeriy:

> BTW, I'm *really* curious (no sarcasm) how you would wrap up in XML
> this exmaple from the lout docs:

                                USA        |0.2i Australia
                          /0.1i Washington |     Canberra

Compact markup close to Lout's:

                   USA        <hgap size="0.2i"/> Australia
<vgap size='0.1i/> Washington <hgap/>             Canberra

More formal markup maybe more suitable for generation, less 
ambiguous but more verbose:

<vgap size='0.1i'>
  <gapitem>
     <hgap size="0.2i"/>
       <gapitem>USA</gapitem>
       <gapitem>Australia</gapitem>
     </hgap>
  </gapitem>
  <gapitem>
     <hgap>
        <gapitem>Washington</gapitem>
        <gapitem>Canberra</gapitem>
     </hgap>
  </gapitem>
</vgap>

Or a compact version of the above:

<vgap size='0.1i'>
  <hgap size="0.2i"/>
    <breakgap>United States of A</breakgap> <!-- several words -->
    Australia <!-- a single word is an object, spaces separate -->
  </hgap>
  <hgap>Washington Canberra</hgap>
</vgap>

In the two former markups the gap operators become functions 
(which take any number of items). We could also markup the unit 
for measurement (i) differently, but I guess that was not 
the point so I left it as is. 

I have to say that many examples in the Lout doc with combination 
of gap operators confused me no end, and I really understood them 
only after reading the implementation paper. Maybe having the 
key examples in the doc annotated with a copy with all the 
curly brackets explicit, and all the implicit null objects 
explicit, could help understanding.

PS: I'm _not_ advocating these examples are implemented 
within Lout!

-- 
Franck Arnaud ~ email: address@hidden