RE: draft-ietf-html-style-00.txt & class as a general selector

At 04:42 PM 12/6/95 -0800, cwilso@microsoft.com wrote:
>I'm a little unclear on why it is desirable to separate CLASS and a 
>classification of style - Michael, could you explain this?  In the limited 
>instances where stylistic information should be set on a class of objects 
>that already belong to a larger CLASS (denoted by attribute) or to disparate 
>CLASSes, it would seem that ID could be set.

CLASS is a way of semantically subclassing elements.  Applying a style is
just one reason you would want to subclass an element.  Creating CLASSes
with types of "big" or "blue" or "five_point" are just as bad as creating
elements named "<BIG>" or "<FONT>".  If you absolutely must put style
information directly in your HTML document, and that style information does
not correspond to a semantic subclass, then you should use some other
attribute, such as STYLE.

I am not entirely in favour of STYLE especially a STYLE that allows direct
application of arbitrary style sheet directives, but I am certainly against
using CLASS for that.

 Paul Prescod

Received on Wednesday, 6 December 1995 22:05:19 UTC