small revision to CSS1

I am currently working on translating CSS1 to DSSSL-o, and
have run into a problem that could be very easily fixed by
a small change in the CSS1 specification.  Translating the
values for the attribute 'font-style' is difficult to do
cleanly because 'small-caps' involves a transformation of
the characters of the text, while the other values ('none',
'italic', and 'oblique') can be translated as a style
description.  My problem would be remedied if the value 
'small-caps' were instead given to the attribute
'text-transform'.  

This move makes sense in the context of CSS, as 'small-caps'
is orthogonal to any of the other possible values of
'font-style' (i.e., it can be specified independently of
those values), but not to the values of 'text-transform'
('none', 'lowercase', 'uppercase', and 'capitalize'). This 
quickly becomes apparent if you try to imagine producing
'small-caps uppercase' text.  The move also makes sense 
for the DSSSL-o translation of 'text-transform', as all of
these values (except 'none', of course) obviously involves
transformations of the text as well, making the grouping
more natural.

I realize that CSS has officially become stable, but I
doubt that this small change would represent a problem to
anyone trying to implement it at present.  It should at
most involve moving a small amount of code between
subroutines, as there will be no change in the behavior
required to implement the value.  As it would be 
advantageous for DSSSL and DSSSL-o translation, and would
help keep users from specifying style prescriptions that
are impossible to render, I suggest that this change be
made as soon as possible.

Thanks,

David

Received on Friday, 31 May 1996 13:14:23 UTC