RE: OBJECT, inheritance, and rendering

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-style-request@w3.org [mailto:www-style-request@w3.org]On
> Behalf Of David Perrell
> Sent: Friday, July 31, 1998 10:21 AM
> To: HTML; Style
> Subject: Re: OBJECT, inheritance, and rendering

> Documents don't have a default style sheet. Rather, the UA has default
> display properties for the various display elements.

And how is this not, functionally, a default style sheet?

> Subsequent style
> declarations alter those display properties for a particular
> user and/or
> document.
>
> There are two ways an included HTML document might be rendered:
>
> 1. As a nested UA window, independent of the enclosing
> document. The OBJECT
> simply defines the dimensions of the nested window. The
> enclosed document is
> rendered as if it were a new document, with no regard to the display
> properties of the enclosing document at the point of insertion.

"Independent" is a strong word. How strongly do you mean it? Do you mean
here that the background color should be the UA default, or that it should
be "transparent", and the color specified in the host document should show
through?

Given (1) the conventional behavior of transparency in inclusions, and (2),
the fact that the initial value for "background-color" is "transparent", the
former interpretation strikes me as inconsistent with the established
behavior for other media types.

And I submit that only the latter interpretation requires no change to the
CSS spec. It seems to me that the former interpretation would require that
the initial value for "background-color" be changed from "transparent" to
"implementation defined".

> 2. As a sub-document of the enclosing document. The enclosed
> document uses
> the current display properties as its own defaults, which may
> or may not be
> used depending on the style declarations in the enclosed
> document. Or the
> enclosed document uses the UA defaults/user stylesheet except
> for color and
> background. Or...
>
> Option #1 is simple. Nothing needs to be added to the CSS
> spec. All the
> arguments about special properties and selective color
> inheritance become
> moot. The disadvantage, for some, is that the enclosing
> document can not
> affect the appearance of the enclosed.

As stated, per my interpretation of the specs, this is not entirely
accurate. The host document *can* affect the background color of the
included document, but not the foreground color.

> But with the enclosed
> document as a
> distinct window, elements such as META refresh, STYLE, and
> LINK are treated
> normally and have no impact on the enclosing document.
>
> Option #2 requires new rules regarding the rendering of one
> HTML document
> inside another. If the second document is truly nested, how
> can another
> STYLE declaration be legal? How should a META refresh be
> treated? Should the
> entire HEAD element be discarded? Should the enclosed document use the
> current style *declarations* as defaults, or the actual style
> properties in
> effect due to inheritance?
>
> Option #2 is a can of worms.

I agree. I am not advocating it. I'm just pointing out some color-specific
problems with inclusions and the HTML and CSS specs.

Braden

Received on Friday, 31 July 1998 15:06:08 UTC