Re: CSS 2: priorities in cascading order

Al Gilman writes:

 > One way to ensure user control is to say that only users can
 > use the new explicit weight.

Yes.

 > There is an alternative to say that within the layer of rules
 > with the new stronger explicit weight that the sorting on the
 > above axis follows the reverse order from the order followed at
 > the lower explicit weights.  This is the "tilt" I have been
 > referring to.  It results in a potato-chip twisted priority
 > surface which tilts one way at one edge and the other way at the
 > other edge.

Seems hard to explain. Also, remember, there are three parts in the
cascade: browser, user and author.

I think we can find a wording which will allow proxies to be
considered as a user -- after all they're proxies on behalf of the
user.

 > Hakon:
 > > No, in many cases the UA will have to approximate values specified in
 > > CSS declarations. The word "required" implies that if the demand can't
 > > be met, something drastic will happen -- e.g. the page will not be
 > > shown. This, in my mind, is incompatible with improving access to
 > > information.
 > 
 > ASG::  If you can't meet a requirement, you don't necessarily throw up
 > your hands and stop work.  You go back to whoever laid the requirement
 > on you to discuss what should be done.  If it it understood that recovery
 > from inability to meet a "!required" clause involves a dialog where
 > the user has to make or confirm decisions, this implication might not
 > be too severe to be what we want.

Personally I hate when dialog boxes pop up, and I'd certainly not want
to acknowledge that the browser substitues Univers with Helvetica for
every page I hit. The negotiation should happen seamlessly on my
behalf and I, as a user, should be given a vocabulary which leaves
room for negotiation. Is there a diplomat among us?

 > However, the idea of "approximating" what the style rules say returns
 > us to the fact that the style language presently says only constructive
 > things, not the reactive things that user rules want to say [Chris
 > Wilson point].

That's correct. CSS can only express constructive rules based on the
markup, not reactive rules based on the presentation. I don't see how
the two can gracefully be combined.

 > There is also a fine point of policy involved in the nomenclature
 > tradeoff between !accessibility and some other name.  The notion
 > that the user has a right to ultimate control should be
 > considered independently from any appeal to special needs for
 > accessibility.  If we agree on the principle that any user has
 > this right, the explicit weight to implement this right should
 > not be named in a fashion which suggests responding to "special"
 > needs.

I think all participants in this discussion would agree with you.
However, it's politically easier to fight this battle with
accessibilty as the official motive.

Regards,

-h&kon

H   å   k   o   n      W   i   u   m       L   i   e
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Received on Monday, 22 December 1997 15:58:05 UTC