[CSS21] system font keywords as font families

Gérard points out that the spec could use some clarification on this point:

>> On Friday 2010-10-15 14:26 -0700, "Gérard Talbot" wrote:
>>> "
>>> System fonts may only be set as a whole; that is, the font family, size,
>>> weight, style, etc. are all set at the same time. These values may then
>>> be altered individually if desired.
>>> "
>>
>> The test is not specifying a system font.  It's specifying a
>> font-family for a font named 'caption'.
>>
>>> So, font: 32px caption;
>>> is wrong and invalid. The parsing system would not know which font size
>>> to use: 8px (usually the default font size for caption) or 32px.
>>
>> The font-size for the caption system font isn't relevant, because
>> this isn't specifying a system font.  It's specifying a font-family
>> called 'caption'.
>
>
> David,
>
> I understand very well what you are saying. But there is definitely a
> potential source of confusion.
>
> "
> Font family names that happen to be the same as a keyword value
> ('inherit', 'serif', 'sans-serif', 'monospace', 'fantasy', and
> 'cursive') must be quoted to prevent confusion with the keywords with
> the same names.
> "
>
> But such escape mechanism does not apply to system font keywords:
> caption, icon, menu, message-box, small-caption and status-bar. You're
> saying it does not need to as it can be self-consistent here. Depending
> on the declaration by itself, the CSS parsing should be able to figure
> out if, say, caption is a system font reserved name or a font type name
> correctly being declared and this, without caption being quoted.

Received on Monday, 25 October 2010 07:35:58 UTC