Re: CSS 2.1 WD and non-CSS presentational hints

> ||  If the user agent chooses to honor presentational hints from other
> ||  sources than style sheets, these hints must be given the same weight
> ||  as the user agent's default style sheet. This rule is intended for
> ||  presentational hints in HTML.  Note that non-CSS presentational hints
> ||  had a higher weight in CSS2. 

Does that mean one should apply them directly after the default style sheet? 
The "same weight" is a bit unclear, since it doesn't tell you if you should 
apply then before or after the default style (since at the same time is not 
really possible ;-).

>  > This change would make it impossible to set defaults in a user style
>  > sheet that could be overridden by old-fashioned HTML.  For example, in
>  > CSS2, a user can include this rule in a user style sheet:
>  >      BODY {color: navy; background: #FEC}
>  > to make text appear, by default, in navy on a manilla background; a page
>  > that specified either:
>  >      BODY {color: white; background: url(dark.png) black}
>  > or:
>  >      <BODY TEXT=WHITE BGCOLOR=BLACK BACKGROUND="dark.png">
>  > would override this and be displayed with the indicated attributes.  The
>  > suggested change would have the thoroughly unintuitive and illogical
>  > result of making these two display differently: the first would follow
>  > the author specifications, but the second would follow the user
>  > specifications.
>
> Correct, the author's attributes are weaker than the author's style sheet.

Which is fine. The point made above is that they would also be lower than user 
style sheets. So HTML hints can never override user style sheets.

>  > To a user, it makes no logical difference whether a particular effect
>  > comes from a style sheet or an HTML presentational hint; these should
>  > not be given opposite priorities with respect to the user style sheet.
>
> We changed this since we don't want to encourage the use of
> presentational hints. It has been a goal of CSS to eradicate the use
> of presentational attributes, and lowering their influence seems a
> logical way of achieving this goal.

In principle, I can only agree. 

But I think most browsers currently allowing user style sheets behave 
differently (correct me if I'm wrong with this assumption) and I thought one 
goal of CSS 2.1 was also to approach common practice.

Cheers,
Lars

Received on Tuesday, 13 August 2002 08:58:54 UTC