Alternative Style Sheets

I've recently bumped into the concept of alternative style sheets.  e.g. @import can have a name or an HTML link tag can have a title.

Firefox provides a way to pick between them.  I don't see a method with Chrome or Safari.

I'm wondering if this is catching on or not.  The one thing I thought perhaps FF would do is remember the style I picked if I went back to a page but it does not.  To my reading of http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-cascade/#at-import it would be allowed.

I can see a couple of potential uses.  One would be "skins" on a web page or even a web application that could be picked and then remembered.  e.g. think of the various themes that jquery-ui has with the ability for the end user to pick his choice.  That could be done with existing technology with the addition of the UA remembering the stylesheet for a particular page.  UAs already remember user names and passwords per site.  Remembering the style sheet name doesn't seem like a huge burden.

There could also be predefined or ad hoc names of the style sheets for cases of a particular color blindness or other specialized purpose such as a style sheet with larger fonts or a high degree of contrast than the normal styling.

It just seems like a cool idea that has potential.  Mostly I'm wondering if anyone is using it or if it is likely to fade away.

Thank you,
Perry Smith

Received on Tuesday, 9 October 2012 03:25:05 UTC