Re: initial ACSS action item response

First, I copied the relevant section of the most recent Cougar spec
and link it from http://www.w3.org/WAI/group/actions.html#ACSS

Cougar (aka HTML 4.0) should be released to the public next Tuesday
(July 1st). I'll try to have the Cougar authors incorporate some of
the comments received on this list before Tuesday.

> The document should at least allow for persistent styles to be
> ignored whenever they are not specifically intended for the medium
> in which the document will be formatted.

The last version of Cougar spec says:

  "...A persistent style is one that is always applied (as long as it
  refers to the correct media type)..."

So this is covered.

> For maximum flexibility, it would be preferable that users be able
> to deactivate persistent styles in all cases and substitute their
> own preferences for those of the author. (I offer this as a
> suggestion for further discussion).

[also in reply to Al's section "Full user control over style"]

This is (was) a political battle. The way it was explained to be a
while ago was that HTML authors would not agree to using Style Sheet
if they were not given a way to "hard-code" their visual presentation
(which for them equals real content). It had to be in the spec. This
is what persistent is all about.

I'm not sure if the idea put forward in Als' section "Confirm
overrides of essential styles" were studied. I'll ask Hakon.


> Secondly, you could address the question of whether it is possible for
> there to be a style sheet that can apply to all media. In the Cougar draft,
> it is proposed that in the absence of an explicit "media" attribute, a
> media type of "all" should be implied by default.

This is still there and I agree with you it's problematic, as I think
most people and authoring tool will omit the media type altogether.


> Stated differently, the
> style sheet is presumed to be relevant to all media types unless otherwise
> specified. Consideration could be given to the question of whether this
> arrangement is satisfactory, and if not, what alternative proposals might
> be offered.

I think the default should be 'screen'.

I'm going to go down the hall today to talk with Hakon, Chris and Bert
about this issue.

> For example, should the specification of a media type be made
> obligatory? 

No default allowed, that another possibility.

> Presumably this would interfere with backward compatibility
> and thus be unacceptable, but the general suggestion is that a range of
> options be considered and discussed. 

BC is no so much an issue. The spec could say 'no default' and
implementations can "grand-father" the 'screen' default.


I think the "Rich media-profiling capability" section in Al's note is
also at the core of this issue and I'd like to see if we cannot come
up with a more concrete proposal enhancement for the upcoming Cougar
spec (thing like adding 'media=tty' is good feedback, but I'm not sure
people will have time to review WordPerfect features before next
Tuesday...).

Received on Friday, 27 June 1997 05:50:47 UTC