Re: [CSS2.1] col attributes: XHTML and CSS inconsistency?

On Dec 30, 2008, at 6:11 AM, Simetrical wrote:

> I guess that if Feature 3 was really important you might want to have
>
> :nth-col(4) { font-weight: bolder; }
>
> but then it's not clear if you'd want this to apply to the other two
> features also, if a cell overlaps all three.  If you want to set apart
> one column by styling it differently, you'd likely avoid colspans that
> run over that row, so I'm not sure if it makes a difference how
> colspans are treated here.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here. I don't think we  
can just guess at which columns styling is more important to  
individual authors of individual projects, but we CAN make the rules  
unambiguous. And if the UA only has to determine the column a TD  
starts in, and not have to determine what other columns' properties  
might also apply to it (or override its own), then that is simpler for  
implementation and speed and resolving conflicts, isn't it? If the  
author only has to be concerned with which column it starts in, and  
not have to determine what other columns' properties might also apply  
to it (or override its own), then that is simpler for authoring.