Re: LINK'ed style sheets -Reply

 From: Charles Peyton Taylor <CTaylor@wposmtp.nps.navy.mil>
| >3) Add a second stylesheet value to the LINK REL attribute, e.g.
| >ALTSTYLESHEET, that would indicate stylesheets that should be
| >presented as alternatives, but not automatically applied.  I
| >personally like this one the best.
| 
| This makes sense.  I know it's a matter of interface, 
| but how would you let the user choose between styles?
---

Actually, there's another wrinkle.  Stylesheets can be combined.  So the
alternative may not just be between n alternative stylesheets, but
between n sets of overlaying stylesheets.

How about this rule: use the TITLE attribute of the LINK element to
name and combine stylesheets, and distinguish one value (say,
"", the null title) as meaning that the so-titled stylesheet or
stylesheets are to be applied automatically. So, using the example in
<http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/WD-style.html>:

    <LINK TITLE="" REL=stylesheet HREF="old.style" TYPE="application/dsssl">
    <LINK TITLE="" REL=stylesheet HREF="old-overlay.style" TYPE="application/dsssl">
    <LINK TITLE="New" REL=stylesheet HREF="new.style" TYPE="application/rtf">
    <LINK TITLE="Wacky" REL=stylesheet HREF="wacky.style" TYPE="text/css">
    <TITLE>ACME Widgets Corp</TITLE>

would indicate that if the user does nothing specific, the old.style and
old-overlay.style stylesheets are to be applied (presumably the
semantics of combining two stylesheets would depend on the type
of the stylesheets).

This degenerates nicely - in the most likely default case - one
stylesheet LINK specified, and it is to be the automatic choice, no name
is needed.

scott

--
scott preece
motorola/mcg urbana design center	1101 e. university, urbana, il   61801
phone:	217-384-8589			  fax:	217-384-8550
internet mail:	preece@urbana.mcd.mot.com