alternate font properties

Sho Kuwamoto writes:

 > Why is it that border-width is shorthand for border-left-width,
 > border-right-width, etc., while border-color isn't shorthand
 > for anything?

It's a good question that has some history behind it. Initially we
wanted to keep the number of CSS properties low and -- more
importantly -- keep them independent of each other. On the other hand,
if you write a script that dynamically changes the value of
properties, you want each and every property to be exposed. Therefore,
it has been argued that 'border-left-color' etc. should be added to
CSS.

Now, it turns out that scripts that modify the presentation of
documents need more information than the CSS1 properties contain.
E.g., most elements will have the 'width' property set to 'auto', and
the formatter will automatically assign a width to the box that
corresponds to the element, e.g. 200px. A script will want to
read/write both these values.

It would therefore, it seems, be good to formalize the difference
between the pre-formatting properties and the post-formatting
properties. Perhaps 'border-left-color' only need to be present on the
post-formatting side.

-h&kon

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Received on Thursday, 31 July 1997 10:42:22 UTC