CSS Draft 8/95: prioritised fount lists

One thing that struck me in the CSS draft specification from 10 August
1995 (at http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/Style/css/draft.html):

A prioritised list for fount families - see the definition of "font" -
is fine (indeed, necessary).

However, choice of fount size and leading is intimately tied to the
choice of fount family.  For example, assume that I would love to have
my text in a 12/14 Bembo (which I do not expect to find on many
machines) but could settle for a 12/12 New Century Schoolbook (which
most machines have). Alternatively, a 12/14 Times would be acceptable.

The best I can do according to the specification is:

    font-family =  bembo new-century-schoolbook times
    font-size = 12pt
    font-leading =  2p

This would give me a 12/14 New Century Schoolbook on many machines,
which is not what I want.

(The fount names in the example are totally random. Suffice to say
that some founts traditionally would be set with more/less leading
depending on their appearance - stuff like x-height, weight, etc.)
	
I propose to change the value of "font" to

	[ size [/leading] family [weight] [style] ]+

very much like the value of "font-family." This would allow the following:

    font = 
	12pt/14pt bembo demi-bold
	12pt/12pt new-century-schoolbook
	12pt/14pt times 

Note that this is a very slight change indeed.

Thore Husfeldt
thore@daimi.aau.dk

Received on Wednesday, 6 September 1995 11:33:49 UTC