Publishable or Published?

[Lou Quillio]

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Bowerbird at aol.com wrote:
> small-bore?
> i don't know what that means, but it sounds like it could be
> some sort of insult.  i don't appreciate your putting an insult
> in my mouth, and then taking offense at it, not in the slightest.

Sorry, dude.  How many ways can a guy say "no offense?"  Musta left one out.

> perhaps you can answer me a question or three.  when i copy
> text out of some browsers, the text-styling and formatting
> is often lost entirely.  what's up with that?

> is there any workaround to this?  is there any browser that
> does a good job of retaining all text-styling and formatting?

Web browser user-agents render text (and inline images) in a
platform-agnostic way.  The styling is dependent on context.  When you
lift only a piece, the context is lost.  When you port it another
doctype, the context is lost.  CSS-based styles are "hints," which the
user may override.

MS Windows applications often try to guess the context of your
paste-target, try to read your mind.  Natch they can't read yours
without potentially mis-reading mine.  They create a false expectation.
 My page (let's say) gave you its text to read; it has no idea what else
you may try to do with it.  You're on your own there.  If there's fault
(and I don't think there is), it lies with whatever you're pasting
things into.

So there's no such thing as a "browser that does a good job of retaining
all text-styling and formatting" in the platform-independent world of
the Web.  Your PC, OS and applications work together in whatever ways
they agree to, but it's a private affair.

Hope this makes sense.  It's not that we've so far failed to improve the
Web into a collection of hyperlinked MS Word documents.  That's not even
a goal.  XHTML is its own, open file format.

Seriously, no offense.

LQ
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