Re: SVG Color Keywords Applicability

On Wednesday 27 June 2007 04:59, Patrick Garies wrote:
> Do the "SVG color keywords" [1] apply outside of SVG? For example,
> should they apply in HTML? I would say “yes” since major Web browsers
> currently support them in such contexts, but the example profile for
> HTML 4 [2] excludes SVG color keywords and Section 4.3 [3] has “SVG”
> in the name.
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-color/#svg-color
> [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-color/#profiles
> [3] http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-color/#svg-color

The "profiles" in the color module are just examples. It's not the task 
of the Color module to define HTML or SVG. In hindsight, maybe the 
specification would have been clearer without those examples...

We called the list of color names "SVG color keywords" because we copied 
them from the SVG specification and because the SVG specification is 
unambiguous. It doesn't mean that the colors are only allowed in SVG. 
We could have called them "X11 color names," but there isn't a unique 
list of X11 color names, as far as I know. Different implementations of 
the X Window System have slightly different lists.

The Color module describes a set of features, but it is not a complete 
specification by itself. It's supposed to be a module in something 
else.

We hope that every format that uses colors will use as many colors as 
possible from this module, ideally the complete set. We also hope that 
everywhere where CSS is used, all the properties and all the colors can 
be used as well. But we know already that in the CSS Mobile Profile, 
e.g., the system colors are optional. Nevertheless, there is an 
implicit assumption that in the most powerful CSS implementations, 
viz., on desktop computers, the whole module will be supported.



Bert
-- 
  Bert Bos                                ( W 3 C ) http://www.w3.org/
  http://www.w3.org/people/bos                               W3C/ERCIM
  bert@w3.org                             2004 Rt des Lucioles / BP 93
  +33 (0)4 92 38 76 92            06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France

Received on Monday, 9 July 2007 13:13:13 UTC