Re: ATTENTION stylesheet users!

CSS1 is an evolving spec. It's great that MS is implementing it at all,
and to respond so quickly to comments from people who will actually be
using it contradicts the arrogance tag applied to MS by so many on the
W3 lists.

There are still many places where IE doesn't conform to the CSS1 spec,
and many features aren't yet implemented. But as long as it's clear MS
is committed to implementing the spec faithfully (and it now appears
they are), spec-IE inconsistencies can be either worked around or
ignored until correctly implemented.

(It might be a good idea to consider all MSIE 3.0x BETA as far as CSS1
is concerned. MS could then post incremental upgrades for evaluation as
soon as a feature is fixed or added.)

A few examples of non-conformance in 3.01:

1) Vertical margins set on block elements should override the default
margins, not get added to them. For example, if P has 12/12 text and 0
margin-top and -bottom, two consecutive paragraphs should have no
vertical space between them.

2) Left margins set on elements with a default indent, such as
BLOCKQUOTE, should override the default, not be added to it.

3) Margins applied to replaced elements such as IMG should express the
minimum distance from the element to the content of the parent element.
(This _should_ be true for floated elements, IMO, since this would give
much more control over how text wraps around the floated element.)

4) Background applied to block elements such as P should effect the
entire block, not each line of text individually. Text can be
highlighted using SPAN or EM.

#1 and #2 are serious shortcomings. You can't have control of
presentation if the UA is still free to insert arbitrary fixed space.

David Perrell

(Not a member of 'IE-HTML@LISTSERV.MSN.COM' or 'wwwac@echonyc.com')

Received on Saturday, 19 October 1996 12:41:35 UTC