- From: Ian Hickson <py8ieh@bath.ac.uk>
- Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 10:56:55 +0100 (BST)
- cc: www-style@w3.org
On Wed, 21 Oct 1998, Jelks Cabaniss wrote: >>> I would like to contribute one suggestion: named styles -- just like >>> in MS Word, Pagemaker, etc. >> I don't quite see what you are looking for. >> Can't you do this with <LINK REL="Alternate Stylesheet"> ? > Have you ever used named styles in Word? Yes. That particular implementation happens to be mighty terrible [1], but I know what named styles are. They are basically <DIV> tags with associated classes specifying a single particular property set. No structure, no cascading, no user/author interaction. > Instead of using the default Heading 1, Normal, etc., you create > your own styles Well, you can do that in CSS: * { your-own-style } /* Changes Normal Style */ H1 { your-own-style } /* Changes Heading 1 Style */ > then you can select text and apply those styles. Ditto with CSS. > Many (probably most) people don't bother with named styles, because > they don't know about them; instead, they just apply the formatting > directly (bold, italic, different font, whatever). This would be like using <FONT>, <B>, <SMALL>, <TT>, etc. > But if you are using named styles, it's similar to using CLASS > attributes in HTML in that if you want to change the look of > something, you only have to do it in *one* place: the style > definition. Ditto with HTML. In Word, you still have to state that a paragrah has "Red Paragraphs" style -- and changing the style will change all red paragraphs. In HTML, if you state that a P is CLASS=RedParagraphs, then the paragraph will have whatever style CSS gives it, and it can change. Of course, CSS can change style across entire sites, and not single pages. > You can *sort of* do that now with CLASS styling in CSS. No. You can *sort of* do that now with Word. CSS does a *hell* of a lot more. > But CLASS properly used (IMO) should really apply to semantics, like > <p class="legal">... I agree too. Your stylesheets would be called "The Red Style" and "The Blue Style", and with a REL="ALTERNATIVE STYLESHEET" you can let the user decide of Paragraphs with semantics legal should use the Red Style or the Blue Style, along with the rest of the page. > What you end up with today is a lot of stuff like <p > class="ItalicRed"> which implies that CLASS means STYLE information. You're doing it wrong. You should be using the semantics to decide style in your CSS. The HTML should have *no* relevance to > You *may* want to style a particular CLASS, but you also may not > care about what *type* of paragraph it is, just what it *looks* > like. Well, then don't apply CSS to classes. P { color: red; } I really don't understand what you want that CSS doesn't already do. ------------ [1]: eg, you cannot delete any of the 200+ default style names!!! -- Ian Hickson
Received on Thursday, 22 October 1998 05:57:00 UTC