RE: CSS 2: priorities in cascading order

How much change would be required in a typical implementation in order to
give effect to the modified definition of !important? All that is needed,
it seems to me, is to test whether the style sheet currently being
processed originated on the user's system or was retrieved via the web. In
the latter case, !important directives should be ignored. This does not
seem to be much to ask of implementors.

My understanding is that the reader's default style sheet would be
processed first, followed by any style sheets associated with the
document. Thus, in response to Al's comment, it would seem that giving
those reader styles which are marked as important priority over all of the
author's styles amounts, in substance, to implementing !important as set
out in the CSS 2 draft, with the important exception that !important
directives in an author's style sheet have no effect.

Adding an extra directive (!absolute or whatever) is an alternative
solution with which I would be satisfied; but it would be simpler to
change the definition of !important as already discussed, and I remain to
be convinced that objections from implementors should be taken seriously.

Received on Friday, 19 December 1997 18:02:00 UTC