Quote:
Originally Posted by Solitaire1
I think this is a matter of preference. Some people prefer indirect formatting (such as modifying the CSS to achieve formatting changes elsewhere in the document), while others prefer direct formatting (such as using the B or STRONG tags to make the text darker).
One of the reasons I tend to prefer direct formatting is based on my experience with styles in word processing. Although styles do make some formatting tasks easier (such as changing the font for certain parts of the ebooks), my experience has been that sometimes it takes more work to achieve a simple effect with indirect formatting.
I think that a good ebook format should allow the user the option of both direct and indirect formatting as well as a mixture of the two depending on the user's preference. To me, the key is to have consistent rules when tagging text.
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Question: who's doing the tagging? As a programmer I see a strong analogy between styles & objects (as in object oriented programming). Both take a long time to develop so they work properly in all situations-and it's much easier to just 'apply consistent rules' every time you need to do whatever it is the object (or style) would do.
But programmers not only work in teams, but programs are also passed along from one programmer to the next. (That is, if I leave this job the programs I wrote will remain-and it'll be up to the next programmer to make any changes that are needed.) So something I've also learned is that rules are only applied consistently when there's only one person applying them. Introduce more people into the process and you get inconsistent application of rules.
Converting to objects was hard, but worthwhile. The rules are now embedded in the objects & it no longer matters who uses the objects-the rules are now applied consistently. I suspect the same would be true of tagging. For a single-person operation, rules can be applied consistently & don't require the effort needed to properly develop styles. But if the process has different people applying the tags, then I suspect styles would give the best results.