- From: E. Stephen Mack <estephen@emf.net>
- Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 18:50:46 -0700
- To: www-style@w3.org
Traditionally, graphical browsers have rendered heading elements (H1..H6) in bold. An element such as: <H1>The headline <STRONG>is</STRONG> important!</H1> (with an embedded strong emphasis element) would not result in a distinction for the word "is" when this element is rendered by browsers such as Navigator and IE (without the use of style sheets). (This HTML example is based on one found in section 1.3 of the CSS spec [1].) Using CSS1, we can declare that level-one heading elements should not be given a bold weight: H1 { font-weight: normal; } Since font weight is an inherited property [2], the STRONG element in the example heading above sbould inherit its parent's lack of bolding. Thus, the example HTML should be displayed with no bolding throughout the entire heading, including the word "is". While Navigator 4.01 renders the heading without any bolding for the word "is", IE 4.0 platform preview 2 does render the word "is" in bold. [3] IE 3.02 renders the entire heading in bold, perhaps it doesn't fully support the "normal" value of font-weight. However, two references list IE 3.02 as supporting this value (for the Macintosh [4] and Windows [5]), while one reference says that IE does not support this value (on both platforms [6]). To make the strong emphasis appear, we can add the following rule: H1 STRONG { font-weight: bold } This causes both IE 4.0 pp2 and Navigator 4.01 to show the right thing, the word "is" in bold. (IE 3.02 is still bolding the entire heading, and given some recent advice of Gordon Blackstock <gordon@quartz.gly.fsu.edu> in private correspondence, I have decided that in general I won't be considering IE 3.x since its behavior seems so perverse and it was released before the CSS1 spec was finalized.) Now, I can almost understand why Navigator does not let the font-weight property inherit down into the embedded STRONG element, since the default property of the STRONG element is font-weight: bold. I've read through the section in the CSS spec on inheritance [7], and I see how rule 3 clearly says that User Agent default values are given less priority than author or reader style sheet values. So, it seems to me Navigator is wrong. Is there a general pattern of priorities that Navigator isn't following correctly of which this is just one example, or this just an isolated quirk? [1] http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/REC-CSS1#inheritance [2] http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/REC-CSS1#font-weight [3] Note that I'm testing on Windows 95, 640x480x256 with default fonts. I can provide screen shots if people are interested. [4] http://www.cwru.edu/lit/homes/eam3/css1/msiegrid.html [5] http://www.shadow.net/~braden/nostyle/ie3.html#font-weight [6] http://www.mcp.com/hayden/internet/style/table.html [7] http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/REC-CSS1#inheritance -- E. Stephen Mack <estephen@emf.net> http://www.emf.net/~estephen/
Received on Saturday, 26 July 1997 21:49:41 UTC