Re: Comments on CSS, Level 1, 23-Nov-95

lilley ([email protected])
Mon, 4 Dec 1995 14:01:28 +0000 (GMT)


Glenn Adams said:

> (1) Abbreviate section "Containment in HTML" to "See draft-ietf-
> html-style-00.txt". In particular, don't include an example which
> is "sure to be obsolete".

I agree with this change.


> (2) Move Pseudo-Elements to level 2.
[ and 10 more instances of "move to level 2"]

There is a balance to be struck between making stylesheets simple for
implementors and worth using / transitioning to for users. I would
caution against chopping down level 1 so much that it becomes
not worth bothering with.

> (9) CSS1 properties - "an ASCII-based UA ini a monochrome environment
> is not able to honor color values" ?? What does ASCII have to do
> with color?
>
Yep. A UA in a monochrome ...

> (10) Fonts - "there exists no well-defined and widely accepted taxonomy
> for classifying fonts". I guess you haven't seen the PANOSE system
> nor have noticed that both Microsoft and IBM employ it in their font
> mapping equipment.

Perhaps that should say, "universally accepted" in which case it would be true.
>
> (11) Under font-size, what does a "VR scene" have to do with HTML? Are
> you confusing HTML with VRML perhaps?

HTML specifies the content, not the presentation ;-) so there is nothing
to forbid HTML being rendered in a VR environment. I think it is a good thing
to draw people's attention to the diversity of output media and styles that
might exist.

Glenn, I hope you are not confusing VRML with Virtual Reality? As currently
specified, the former has little to do with the latter.

> (12) bg-light-source - move to level 2 (please don't propose new and
> exciting but unimplemented properties for level 1!)

I agree that the name is misleading; it does not specify a light source.
It specifies a way of interpolating between two colours. Unlike Glenn I
think this should (suitably renamed) be in CSS level 1, precisely because
it allows those mid blue to dark blue transitions (for example) that are so
popular for presentations and which canniot be done in a window-size
independent manner in current UAs.

> (22) Formal grammar needs revision to eliminate level 2 productions
> and extensions

I would put it stronger; the formal grammer needs to be specified. In human
readable form, not input for lex/yacc

EBNF and Pascal-style syntax diagrams are two possibilities for this.

> In general, you should move to level 2 any properties which aren't currently
> found in commonplace use in existing Web Viewer/Browser technology.

So what incentive is there to move to stylesheets?

New! Stylesheets! Let you do most of what you can do in Netscape, but
you need to retype it all. Guaranteed, no new or interesting features!

Is hardly a compelling sales pitch.

-- 
Chris Lilley, Technical Author and JISC representative to W3C 
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