Re: Useragent Rules in CSS

Kynn Bartlett:
> This, it turns out, is the same philosophy behind Composite Capabilities and
> Preferences Profiles (CC/PP), which is a W3C recommendation for creating
> browsers which are self-identifying.

Although the spec resulting from CC/PP will likely be interesting, I think its
intended use needs a change.


David Woolley:
> Where does Microsoft publish the Internet Explorer DTD for HTML?  I think you
> are asking for something similar from the vendors and the past precedent seems
> to be that they aren't interested in providing machine readable descriptions of
> their product behaviour.

Yes - I'm no Microsoft basher, but let's face it - even if CC/PP comes out as a
solid spec, Microsoft isn't going to use it.

Perhaps more importantly, no browser vendor is going to use it effectively on their
own. What would be very useful to authors as a result of CC/PP is a central,
authoring community-controlled repository for CC/PPs (hint: W3C). A total profile
that is comprehensive to authors, perhaps controlled by a dedicated W3C list,
could be maintained, and that profile, not unlike a DTD, could be referenced by
URL for feature support.

With that in place the only CC/PP problems remaining would be:

* Browsers that don't bother checking the W3C CC/PPs, and use their own or none.

* Old browsers, and the need for something like a .js include that will check the
CC/PP for you.

-Chris "SoopahMan" Moschini
http://hiveminds.info/
http://soopahman.com/

Received on Wednesday, 31 March 2004 10:34:48 UTC