Re: [csswg-drafts] [css-ui] Define design principles for `appearance: base` stylesheet (#10866)

> Good default UA styles for form controls should be consistent across controls, including **how they are defined in code**

This means the way CSS is used to style the controls should be consistent across form controls. We shouldn't style one with one approach / technique, and then use a different approach for another. The code should be consistent. (If color is defined one way for one control — perhaps with relative color syntax — then color should be defined that way for all controls, etc.) In addition, we should reuse as much code as possible.

>  Good default UA styles for form controls should be consistent across controls, including **in sizing and interaction**

All form controls should use the same approach to sizing and layout. And the same approach for interactions (focus, etc). Right now, the form controls are not consistent. Different controls were defined in different eras, and it makes it that much harder to style them.

Just look at how different the sizes of the default text boxes are:

<img width="213" alt="Screenshot 2024-09-10 at 4 56 44 PM" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/ac76bb1a-28ae-4ccf-bfd0-42303721f9ea">

We should fix that. Every control should use a similar kind of layout. If we decide to make them flexible (with `width: 100%` for example), then they should all be flexible (where appropriate) — and not make half the text boxes fixed-width and half flexible for seemingly no particular reason. 

These things might seem obvious, but part of the reason to create design principles is to make sure everyone is on the same page, operating from the same set of assumptions. It's easier to sort such things out at the beginning, then to find out later some of the parties involved have completely different thinking. For instance, perhaps there is someone who thinks it's more important to be consistent with the past — and keep the inconsistency in layout — than making a bigger change, and changing all the controls to use the same approach to layout. 

Let's discuss the principles, and come to consensus. Then, when we are bike shedding details of code later, we can refer back to the principles we've set. They will help us make decisions.


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Received on Tuesday, 10 September 2024 21:08:48 UTC