RE: The "title" attribute of "style" elements

Ian Hickson [mailto:py8ieh@bath.ac.uk] wrote:
>Hang on -- the suggestion you gave does _not_ have this functionality.

Actually, I didn't say anything at all about this - TITLE group switching
for STYLE elements, that is.  All I suggested was providing a mechanism that
would allow for non-preferred alternate embedded style sheets that did NOT
break backwards compatibility.  That means, in essence, adding something
that would not have occurred in content previously, and therefore does not
change behavior and break backwards compatibility.

Having not said anything about TITLE grouping for STYLE elements before, I'd
like to point out that the stylesheet selector context-menu enhancement I
sent out to the www-style list a couple of years ago did, in fact, group and
switch STYLE elements based on their TITLEs - so obviously, I agree it's a
useful mechanism.

>I am suggesting emulating the behaviour of the _title_ attribute. I am
>NOT looking for a way to hook things into scripting -- I am looking
>for a way to introduce multiple alternate, named stylesheets.

The only thing I said about scripting was that we added the DISABLED
attribute intending for it to be an object model property; by accident, it
was exposed as an HTML attribute as well.  I think it's useful as an HTML
attribute, for exactly the reasons you've given.

>For example, my proposal allows you to supplement different alternate
>stylesheets with embedded stylesheet styles:
>   <!-- first, link in to four different alternate stylesheets: -->
>   <link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="style1.css" title="a">
>   <link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="style2.css" title="b">
>   <link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="style3.css" title="c">
>   <link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="style4.css" title="d">
>
>   <!-- next, add special style relevant only to this page for each of
>   the alternate stylesheets -->
>   <style type="text/css" title="a"> ... </style>
>   <style type="text/css" title="b"> ... </style>
>   <style type="text/css" title="c"> ... </style>
>   <style type="text/css" title="d"> ... </style>
>
>   <!-- next, add an alternative style specific to this page -->
>   <style type="text/css" title="e"> ... </style>
>
>How does your proposal even come _close_ to supporting this?

<link>s omitted, because they're not required.  I didn't understand your
comments about the differences between the STYLE elements, but anyway:

	<!-- preferred - applied on load -->
   <style type="text/css" title="a"> ... </style>  
   <style type="text/css" disabled title="b"> ... </style>
	<!-- Alternates - not applied on load, can be switched on -->
   <style type="text/css" disabled title="c"> ... </style>
   <style type="text/css" disabled title="d"> ... </style>
   <style type="text/css" disabled title="e"> ... </style>

-Chris Wilson

Received on Friday, 5 November 1999 15:54:16 UTC