Re: [css3-ui] drop 'appearance' and related properties

On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 20:26, Charles Pritchard <chuck@jumis.com> wrote:
> On 11/24/11 7:34 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 8:16 PM, John Daggett<jdaggett@mozilla.com>
>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> The CSS3 UI module includes a section entitled "Appearance" (currently
>>> section 5) [1].  The properties described in this section allow
>>> arbitrary elements to mimic the appearance/fonts/colors of system UI
>>> elements.
>>>
>>> ...

On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 8:16 PM, John Daggett<jdaggett@mozilla.com>
>>> I realize both Webkit and Mozilla include prefixed '-xxx-appearance'
>>> properties but I'm not sure I see the need to standardize these.

Worse yet, despite being in a CR[1] for 7+ years, implementations have
not converged, except for (prefixed) appearance:none, which I don't
think is sufficient to justify keeping this feature.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/CR-css3-ui-20040511/


>>>  Given
>>> the current diversity of UI's in use across desktop and mobile platforms
>>> I think this is difficult to standardize in a way that would really
>>> serve a worthy purpose.

I'd disagree with that assertion, and note that the existence,
support, and use of (a growing number of) cross-platform UI elements
in HTML5 refutes the assertion (<button>, <select>, new <input>s etc.)


On 11/24/11 7:34 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
>> In practice, I believe that "appearance:none" is occasionally required
>> in some UAs (like WebKit, iirc) to turn off the native rendering of
>> some controls and allow full CSS styling.

Some form of "appearance:none" may be worth exploring as a CSS4-UI feature.


On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 20:26, Charles Pritchard <chuck@jumis.com> wrote:

> I'd like to get them out of CSS-UI and into a more experimental/exploratory
> specification
> I like that css-ui is getting cleaned up proper.

Agreed, it is clear that the current CSS3-UI CR attempt at
'appearance' is a failed experiment and thus should be reconsidered
from a design perspective.

At the time of the introduction and development of the 'appearance'
property, it appeared that the limited set of specific UI elements in
HTML were not going to be extended, and thus we tried doing so (in a
limited capacity) with CSS.

Since new input elements etc. have been added to HTML5, and there is
clearly opportunity to add more as deemed practically necessary, it
makes more sense now to pursue new specific UI elements in HTML5
first, and then design any new related CSS features subsequently.


> That said, I really think it's important to maintain these quirks somewhere.
> They represent the existing component model.
>
>
> css-component is a bit long, and css-com might be a strange idea for a name.

I'm not sure the current 'appearance' property is even a worthy of
being considered a "quirk" to be maintained.

I've moved it to the CSSWG wiki to the "dropped from CSS3-UI" section
of the CSS4-UI page [2] so that we can keep it nearby as background
work to be considered when designing any new related feature(s).

[2] http://wiki.csswg.org/spec/css4-ui#dropped-css3-features

I've updated CSS3-UI to drop 'appearance' as proposed per the reasons
given/above, and lacking objections thereto:

http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-ui/

Thanks,

Tantek

-- 
http://tantek.com/ - I made an HTML5 tutorial! http://tantek.com/html5

Received on Tuesday, 13 December 2011 16:24:27 UTC