- From: John Lewis <lewi0371@mrs.umn.edu>
- Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 13:45:32 -0600
- To: www-html@w3.org
Tim wrote on Thursday, December 19, 2002 at 2:57:32 AM: > At 2002-12-18T17:31-0600, John Lewis wrote:- >> Well said. I agree. However, even with a normative style sheet for >> XHTML 2.0, you can override anything with a user style sheet, which >> means the above is not a reason to not create a normative user >> style > ^^^^ > Do you mean UA here? Yes, sorry. >> sheet. One good reason is that it restricts the freedom of browsers >> (but not people) to cleverly present markup in new, easy to >> understand ways. > Normative to me suggests compulsory. Surely you do not mean that? Yes, I did mean normative, but I did not agree that it's a good idea. > An informative style sheet I could understand, though even that > might tend to hinder innovation, simply because there would be > tendency to use it as a description of "intended" rendering. Perhaps > it would be better to have multiple, wildly different informative > style sheets, each clearly a little bizarre in its own way, to make > it clear that none is the One True Way. Even then, we run into the > problem that there will almost certainly be some aspects of > presentation that cannot be expressed in CSS. > Why should innovation be allowed only for users (and, one supposes, > authors), prohibited for browser developers? No good reason. I was trying to point out that a normative UA style sheet doesn't prevent a user from making content accessible with a user style sheet (the original person's reason for disliking a normative UA style sheet). > Is it really good to restrict the freedom of browsers to present > markup in easy to understand ways? I don't think so. On the other hand, I don't think it's an infinite evil. I think there are advantages to a normative UA style sheet--I just think the disadvantages, like the freedom lost, outweigh the advantages. > If users find that a browser presents some markup poorly, they are > free to try other browsers (or, as you say, to override the unwanted > behaviour in user style sheets). If users like a certain > presentation, does it really matter that it differs from the > Official Normative Style Sheet? Not if there isn't an official normative style sheet. :) > One can expect that implementations will rapidly evolve towards > helpful renderings, which may differ from each other in some > respects. What you appear to be proposing would prevent this > evolution, as a non-default setting that turned out to be preferred > by the vast majority of a browser's users could not conformantly be > made the default. I was not proposing a normative UA style sheet. I was responding to the proposal. -- John
Received on Thursday, 19 December 2002 14:46:13 UTC