Re: [webcomponents] Making the shadow root an Element

On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 3:49 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com>wrote:

> Right now, the shadow root inside a component isn't an element, so it
> can't host styles, etc.  This makes a few things weird, though.
>
> For example, it means that it's non-trivial to get at the style of
> text nodes directly inside the shadow.  Normally you can just look at
> the parentNode of a text node, but here you have to actually look at
> the host element.  And if the host element has blocked inheritance,
> you can't even do that - you have to calculate the initial value for
> yourself, because there's nothing you can actually *ask* for the style
> information.
>
> For another example, it means that you can't do any
> inheritance-blocking yourself, without inserting an additional
> wrapper.  If you let author inheritance through, but you want to block
> specific properties, you'd want to set "property-in-question:
> default;" at the "root" of the shadow, so it'll reset to its normal
> value.  Alternately, if we implement inheritance-blocking with CSS's
> new 'all' property
> <http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-cascade/#all-shorthand>, we need to set
> it on some "root", but that doesn't yet exist.
>
> I propose that we reify the shadow root into an element, but default
> it to "display: contents;"
> <http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-display-3/#the-display-box> in the UA
> stylesheet. That way it has no layout effect by default, but provides
> a handy element for doing all the things I've talked about in this
> email.
>
> I haven't thought through all the implications so far, though, like
> what the element name is, if it can have attributes set on it, etc.
>
> Thoughts?
>

I support this line of thinking, though also recognize we might be staring
into the abyss once we followed that line.

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=16294

:DG<