> I think that it would be premature to standardize CLASSes until we see what
> people want to do with them.
>
> But Benjamin's concern is valid and common. Others are expressing it in
> various HTML forums. They want their CLASSed text to be visually
> differentiated ASAP. New browsers are coming out every month, but they are
> no closer to differentiating between CLASSes of text, because they are
> waiting for style sheets.
Which is precisely the right thing to do, IMO.
I believe that CLASSes should *never* be standardized
in the sense that you describe, i.e., such that a browser
would give elements special treatment based on CLASS
attribute values without an explicit instruction from
the author.
Authors must be free to use whatever CLASS names they
come up with without fear that Somebody Else's Browser
might do something unexpected with their document.
Domain- or organization- specific "conventional standards"
would be quite useful, but these should not be hardwired into
browsers.
> The CLASS and ID attributes should also be added to HTML as soon as possible
> (HTML 2.1?). A useful style sheet language can be developed which does not
> depend on them, but can use them when they are present.
Yes, definitely. Also DIV.
> I suggest we develop a transitional style sheet format while we work out the
> "real thing." We can call it "W3C Style Sheets version 0.5" or perhaps
> "W3C Interm Style Sheet format" to indicate that something better is coming.
> Alternately, we might want to keep style sheet version numbers in line with
> HTML version numbers for simplicity. Everyone knows that HTML 3.0 is
> coming, so they would assume that HTML 3.0 "style sheets" are coming too.
> [...]
> Comments? Ideas? Should I present a more technical specification? I would
> imagine the language would be a touched-up subset of the current CSS proposal
--Joe English