[CSS21] || [CSS3] Property 'bottom' vs value 'bottom'.

Hello all,
First I want to apoligize if this has already been addressed or if (as I 
beleive to be true) has been addressed, now, beyond a deadline.

The 'bottom' property (used in relation to the 'position' property 
currently outlined in CSS2.1) seems to have a glaring conflict in its 
naming convention. The property itself I will not debate.
Due to the fact that most all other property names are fairly specific 
(with the help of hyphens "-" for multiple word specificity) and the 
fact that there has been a long standing as well as very useful value 
with the same name; I beleive that the property 'bottom' should be 
renamed as it were.

I propose that while developing upcoming standards, the property in 
question may be referred to as, perhaps, 'box-bottom', 'element-bottom', 
'block-bottom', etc. Such a name would help alleviate the confusion 
caused for novice authors and even some (X)HTML/CSS editors so widely 
used, that which prevents some (authors and user-agents/editors) to 
determine if one particular instance of 'bottom' is a property or a 
value. With a simple enough understanding of the proper syntax, one can 
determine that any particular instance is exactly what it should be (was 
intended to be). However, I still feel that this proposal of mine is in 
the spirit of CSS by requiring a simple, straightfoward, strict, and 
unilateral thus not nearly so easily confused range of keywords and 
syntax while still getting the job done.

For some context I would like to relay to you how I happened upon this 
duplicity and its problems:
I prefer to use a popular freeware code editor (Crimson Editor) which 
allows one to use custom syntax files in order to stay up to date on 
ever-changing syntax with little trouble. I have recently noticed that 
while using said editor to view some CSS2.1 files, it was unable to 
properly highlight the property 'bottom'. It was assuming that this 
property was simply a value; although, in the wrong place. I myself had 
forgotten what this property was and immediately became concerned about 
this errant code. After a quick visit to w3.org, I realized the problem 
(which wasn't a coding one).
I then attempted to edit the custom syntax files, but soon realized that 
there isn't, to my knowledge, a way of determining for this editor when 
one keyword acts as property or as a value in this particular context.

Thank you for taking the time to read and consider this request. It may 
well be that the above situation is solvable in other manners or even 
not so important, but I would still contend that this duplicity is not a 
commonality within the CSS recommendations, nor should it be. Thus, I 
ask that it be deprecated and replaced with more specific wording.

--Paul D. Stanwyck

Received on Thursday, 3 November 2005 11:57:27 UTC