Just Write

Web Stan­dards

Sep­a­rate Con­tent from Style

One of the prin­ci­ples of web stan­dards is to sep­a­rate the “con­tent” layer (e.g. XHTML) from the “pre­sen­ta­tion” or “style” layer (i.e. CSS).

Textpat­tern says: Yes

Textpat­tern auto­mat­i­cally facil­i­tates sep­a­rat­ing con­tent from style, with the “Con­tent” and “Pre­sen­ta­tion” tabs.

Sep­a­rate Con­tent, Style … and Action

Another prin­ci­ple is to sep­a­rate any “behav­ior” (e.g. javascript/​DOM script­ing) from both of the other layers. This is some­times called “unob­tru­sive javascript,” such that the behav­ior is not nec­es­sary to the page, but only enhances it.

From the Web Stan­dards Project, the DOM Script­ing Task Force’s Man­i­festo states:

At the moment JavaScript suf­fers from out­dated, unin­formed, and inac­ces­si­ble devel­op­ment meth­ods which pre­clude it, and there­fore web devel­op­ment in gen­eral, from attain­ing its full poten­tial.
The WaSP DOM Script­ing Task Force pro­poses to solve this prob­lem by the adop­tion of unob­tru­sive DOM script­ing, a way of think­ing based on mod­ern, standards-​compliant, acces­si­ble web devel­op­ment best practices.

That word “unob­tru­sive” means, among other things, “sep­a­rate behav­ior from con­tent and presentation.”

This tri­une sep­a­ra­tion is sim­i­lar to the object-​oriented con­cept in soft­ware devel­op­ment of Model, View, Con­troller.

Textpat­tern says: Not Yet

Textpat­tern Fea­ture Request:

How about a Behav­ior tab in TxP? The pri­mary tabs would then be Con­tent, Pre­sen­ta­tion, Behav­ior, Admin and View Site.

Of course, I ask with­out the slight­est idea of how hard it would be. My think­ing is just that … well, it would be nice to have.

Per­haps it will be in Textpat­tern Pro?