DOM CSS

Here are some comments and questions I have about the DOM Level 2
working draft, Chapter 1 (DOM CSS). [1]  Some of my comments may be
somewhat misguided.  I am appoaching this with knowledge of CSS and
stylesheets, but only very basic knowledge of the DOM.

Section 1.2: interface StyleSheet

  Perhaps the definition of the title attribute should mention the
  complexity of the use of titles for sets of stylesheets as
  described in HTML40, section 14.3. [2]

Section 1.3: interface CSSStyleDeclaration

  How do the functions in CSSStyleDeclaration handle shorthand
  properties [3] (e.g., margin)?  I think the shorthand properties
  should be treated as decomposed into their full representations.
  This implies that when the related longhand properties (i.e.,
  margin-top, etc.) are retrieved, they are all correct.  When the
  longhand properties are set, the results are as expected, since the
  properties previously set on the shorthand properties and not changed
  will stay unchanged, but the property that was changed should be
  changed.  When the shorthand properties are set, all the longhand
  properties of which they are composed are set/reset (per CSS spec).
  (I think this was likely understood by the authors, but I think it
  deserves mention.)

  For example, if the margin property is set to "1em 2em 3em 4em"
  (meaning top, right, bottom, and left margins),
  getPropertyValue("margin-left") should return "4em".
  If one then calls setProperty("margin-top", "0", ""), then I think
  getPropertyValue("margin") should return "0 2em 3em 4em".

  Question:  Is it within the scope of the DOM to specify that some
  arguments to functions should be optional??  If so, I think priority
  on CSSStyleDeclaration::setProperty should be.

Section 1.4: interface CSS2Properties

  Question: is there an attribute of type CSS2Properties in the
  interface CSS2StyleDeclaration?  Or is it not mentioned because it
  is optional?

David

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-DOM-Level-2/css.html
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/present/styles.html#h-14.3
[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/about.html#shorthand

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L. David Baron         | Freshman, Harvard
dbaron@fas.harvard.edu | < http://www.fas.harvard.edu/%7Edbaron/ >
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Received on Wednesday, 3 February 1999 23:10:22 UTC