ACTION-2727 deprecating contentStyleType

Hello public-svg-wg,

This is the current language on contentStyleType

contentStyleType = "content-type"
    Identifies the default style sheet language for the given document. This language must be used for all instances of style that do not specify their own style sheet language, such as the 'style attribute' attributes that are available on many elements. The value content-type specifies a media type, per MIME Part Two: Media Types [RFC2046]. The default value is "text/css" [RFC2318].
    Animatable: no.

Because of
ACTION-2727
Come up with text for SVG 1.1 2nd saying contentStyleType is deprecated

I propose a slight clarification of the existing text (could be misread as saying that contentStyleType must be used), and a subsequent two paragraphs explaining why it is deprecated.

contentStyleType = "content-type"
    Identifies the default style sheet language for the given document. That language must then be used for all instances of style that do not specify their own style sheet language, such as the 'style attribute' attributes that are available on many elements. The value content-type specifies a media type, per MIME Part Two: Media Types [RFC2046]. The default value is "text/css" [RFC2318].
    Animatable: no.

Note: Since the only widely deployed language used for inline styling (in style elements and style attributes) is CSS, and since that is already the default language if contentStyleType is omitted, in practice contentStyleType is not well supported in user agents. XSL stylesheets are typically external. If a new style sheet language becomes popular, it might not use style attributes and could easily declare which language is in use with the type attribute on the style element. 

The use of contentStyleType is therefore deprecated; new content should not use it. Future versions of the SVG specification may remove contentStyleType. 

I took over ACTION-2727 since it was blocking publication. Originally assigned to jwatt, it seemed that anyone could do it so I did.

This change would affect the test styling-elem-02-b.svg

-- 
 Chris Lilley                    mailto:chris@w3.org
 Technical Director, Interaction Domain
 W3C Graphics Activity Lead
 Co-Chair, W3C Hypertext CG

Received on Monday, 10 May 2010 12:29:11 UTC