Re: Relative weight - reader vs. author styles

I'm not sure you're reading the _most_ recent CSS1. See

http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/PR-CSS1-961112

where Section 3 now reads:

>By default, the weights of the reader's rules are less than the
>weights of rules in the author's documents. I.e., if there are conflicts 
>between the style sheets of an incoming document and the reader's
>personal sheets, the author's rules will be used.

...

>A reader rule with an important declaration will override an author rule 
>with a normal declaration. An author rule with an important declaration
>will override a reader rule with an important declaration.

This clearly signfies that author's important rules override reader's
important rules. It seems that the only recourse a reader would have
to force settings if the author sets everything to IMPORTANT would
be to turn off style sheets. Yet this ability is not a requirement
in CSS1, so some UAs might be developed that truly allow the author
the "final say." I wouldn't want to use such a browser, though.

From Section 3.2:

>This strategy gives author's style sheets considerably higher weight
>than those of the reader. It is therefore important that the reader
> has [sic] the ability to turn off the influence of a certain style 
>sheet, e.g. through a pull-down menu

From Section 7:

>This specification also recommends, but doesn't require, that a UA: 
>
>      allows the reader to specify personal style sheets 
>      allows individual style sheets to be turned on and off 

I wish this were changed to make it a requirement that style sheets
could be turned off and on by users, as a last resort against
authors who use IMPORTANT for all aspects of their style guides.



 William I. Johnston
 Watertown, MA   USA
 mailto:wij@world.std.com
 http://world.std.com/%7Ewij/

"We should work toward a universal linked information
 system, in which generality and portability are more
 important than fancy graphics techniques and complex
 extra facilities."
                        --Tim Berners-Lee, March 1989
 http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/History/1989/proposal.html

Received on Friday, 15 November 1996 13:51:52 UTC