Using the Styles dialog box: "Other", and other questions…

[avi10000]

Hi all,

I am now starting to use the Styles dialog box, with the intention of learning it well: how it works and how it does not work. i.e., any bugs there may be there.


1. First of all I note that in the Styles dialog box there are three subtrees in the Styles navigator pane on the left.
- Character
- Other
- Paragraph

What is "Other"?
From the names H1, H2, P, etc. it seems to me they are HTML element tags. But not all. Right? Wrong?


2. I notice an interesting phenomenon: styles are being duplicated.

I defined a new style that I called List_Number_1.
It then appeared Styles dialog box in the "Paragraph" subtree. So far so good.
Then I applied this new style to a paragraph in my topic.

a.

I then looked again at the Styles dialog box, and I see that List_Number_1 has also appeared in the "Other" subtree, however named a bit differently: "P-List_Number_1".

Why has this happened? Who needs it?


b.

Then I look in the HTML window. I see that for each list item, it has generated the following sort of line:

<li class=P-List_Number_1><p class=List_Number_1>This is a list item 1</p></li>

So now I see that the "Other" subtree also contains classes (=styles). And that's what I would now expect to see in the CSS file.

So RH has applied TWO classes for each list item. Who needs TWO? Looks superfluous to me. Again, who needs the P-List_Number_1?


c.

Then I look in the CSS file. I see that it has created a List_Number_1 CSS class for the <P> HTML element and for the <LI> HTML element, whose definitions overlap, as follows:

P.List_Number_1 {
list-style: decimal;
margin-top: 4.5pt;
margin-bottom: 4.5pt;
font-size: 10pt;
}
LI.P-List_Number_1 {
list-style: decimal;
font-size: 10pt;
}

So I now see that P.List_Number_1 adds the margin properties. So who needs P.List_Number_1 ?

Can somebody tell me what's goin' on here?

Is there a good reason for generating such bloated HTML/CSS?

Great thanks in advance,

- avi

[MergeThis]

Let's see...

You're perfectly willing to let RH display HTML code in your project in WYSIWYG mode, keep track of all your topics, images, etc., generate an online triple-frame output with TOC, Index, Search, and Glossary, as well as a print version, prepare online output for multiple browsers that refuse to display some forms of code that the other browsers do, yada, yada, yada.

However, you balk at its methods, that is, adding some specific code for its own purposes.

We are all RH users, here, with challenging jobs of our own. We have all worked with multiple versions of RH (some since the early 90's) and other HATs (some since the late 80's), and we have mostly learned to deal with HATs as we would with crazy Uncle Harry. And that is, to accomodate his quirky behavior as necessary to get through Thanksgiving dinner.


Good luck,
Leon

[avi10000]

>> Let's see... <SNIP> Good luck,

Ok, that's fine.

>> adding some specific code for its own purposes.

Ok, that's also fine.
But RH left me wondering why it is showing me that "Other" subtree with all its styles/whatever. I was wondering if I actually had to do something with them, or at least offering me some advantage by using them.

I understand from your answer that it was just a mistake that RH shows us that subtree, and we should just ignore it?

Thanks :-)

- avi

[MergeThis]

Yes, RH has always "beefed up" the .css entries, but the "Other" seems to be an effort on their parts to be more transparent. Only thing I can figure...


Good luck,
Leon