Re: [css-fonts] Proposal for standardizing font timeout behavior

On Oct 30, 2014, at 1:43 AM, John Daggett <jdaggett@mozilla.com> wrote:

>>  FF and Chrome/Opera currently have a default of "mandatory 3s".  IE
>>  has a default of "mandatory 0s".  Safari has a default of "mandatory
>>  <infinite-time-value>".

We learned at the meeting that FF timing is more complex than that.

> CSS properties have an initial value which is the same across
> browsers. The descriptors of the @font-face value have default
> values which are the same across browsers. So you need to define an
> initial value of the 'font-rendering' property and a default value
> for the 'font-rendering' descriptor within @font-face rules. In
> fact, to implement what you've described you need slightly different
> values for the property, since I think you want the default value
> for the descriptor to be "whatever the user agent timeout policy is"
> and for the *property* you want an initial value of 'auto' to mean
> "decide based on the 'font-rendering' descriptor value of the font".

IF the UA behaviors could be described via the proposed values, then that could be handled via a UA style sheet, instead of an initial value of auto. But apparently, FF's behavior cannot be, other than by 'auto', and we want to allow innovative default UA strategies, so I agree that 'auto' is a good (initial) value to have.

> But this is just CSS mechanics, the important thing to decide here
> is whether you're proposing a single browser default timeout
> behavior or not. I actually think requiring some form of timeout
> would be a good idea. I'm guessing the 'mandatory <infinite>' for
> Safari is just a bug not really a feature.

It is kind of crazy to have that for everything, but I think 'mandatory infinite' would be useful for icon/picture fonts. Or, if not 'infinite', then some sort of keyword to make it fall back to a generic glyph (such as a square), instead of whatever letter the icon is mapped to.

Received on Thursday, 30 October 2014 13:37:25 UTC