- From: Ian Hickson <py8ieh@bath.ac.uk>
- Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 13:07:55 +0000 (BST)
- To: George Lund <george@lundboox.demon.co.uk>
- cc: www-style@w3.org
On Mon, 8 Mar 1999, George Lund wrote:
> Ian Hickson <py8ieh@bath.ac.uk> wrote...
>> *never* use 'background-color: transparent'.
> Why is there a specific value of background-color called
> transparent? Should CSS3 get rid of it all together to save
> confusion?
Well, 'transparent' *can* be used, provided everyone follows Todd's
"reasonable and prudent" notion.
However, users with badly designed user.css files will have problems
reading all the text.
I am now changing to the view of 'too bad': if users are going to make
user stylesheets, then they might as well get educated enough to know
what they are doing and when it is likely to cause problems. IOW,
while authors should be responsible, they should not need to protect
themselves from irresponsible users.
For example, the user.css file:
BODY { background: black ! important; color: white ! important; }
...would clash with:
BODY { background: white url(..); color: blue; }
:link, :visited { color: black; } /* transparent bg */
And so the user should know that they should additionally say:
* { background: transparent ! important; color: inherit ! important; }
Education is, I (now) believe, the key here.
> Presumably the only advantage of using transparent over inherit is
> that transparent allows a picture to show through.
> How could this effect be achieved given that using transparent is
> dangerous?
By not changing the 'color' property of any children... ;-)
--
Ian Hickson
U+2642 U+2651
U+262E U+2603 U+263A
Received on Tuesday, 9 March 1999 08:09:03 UTC