Re: [css3-color] transparency, opacity, translucency

On Feb 24, 2011, at 22:56 , Brad Kemper wrote:

> There is a section in CSS Color called "Transparency: the ‘opacity’ property" [1].
> 
> I believe the word "transparency" is misused there. "Transparent" is defined in CSS Color as 'rgba(0,0,0,0)' and that fits with other English definitions too, in which transparent is at one end of the scale and opaque is at the other. The scale itself is one of translucency. "Translucent" usually means something between opaque (or completely opaque) and transparent (not opaque at all). Thus, I think the chapter should be renamed "Translucency: the ‘opacity’ property".
> 
> 
> 
> 1) http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-color/#transparency

Does the section need any word at all before "The opacity property"?  At best we are trying to express a tautology, at worst introducing confusion.  Why not just call the section that? ("The Opacity Property")?





By the way, I love the non-sequitur at the end of the 'color' section:

"This property describes the foreground color of an element's text content. In addition it is used to provide a potential indirect value (currentColor) for any other properties that accept color values. If the ‘currentColor’ keyword is set on the ‘color’ property itself, it is treated as ‘color: inherit’.

There are different ways to specify lime green:
  em { color: lime }               /* color keyword */
  em { color: rgb(0,255,0) }       /* RGB range 0-255   */
"

You mean, lime green is unique, super special, and has to be mentioned specially :-)?  

Perhaps some text got lost here?  ("There are various ways to specify a color, including using keywords, RGB values, and HSL values. For example, there are different ways to specify lime green:"


David Singer
Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.

Received on Saturday, 26 February 2011 00:10:42 UTC