- From: Ian Hickson <py8ieh@bath.ac.uk>
- Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 13:48:04 +0100 (BST)
- To: Andrew n marshall <amarshal@usc.edu>
- cc: Jean-Michel Leon <jmleon@eng.sun.com>, www-style <www-style@w3.org>
On Wed, 26 May 1999, Andrew n marshall wrote:
>> Why so you want to have a special case for 'italic' and 'normal'.
>> what about 'bold' and 'normal' ? Then you might wanna do that for
>> colors, as well??? Then why not have another that skips 1 on 3
>> levels???? Then ....
Well, font-style is a special case. With colour, you can set each
different element to a different colour and then if they are nested
then there is no problem.
But with font-style, there are only two (three, actually) possible
states: normal and italic (and oblique). So if you wish to use
font-style to highlight text, you must toggle it back.
As to the other properties, well, most _do_ have a relative partner:
font-size larger, smaller
font-stretch wider, narrower
font-weight bolder, lighter
Others, such as text-decoration, don't need them (text-decoration is
additive, so setting the underline to something whose parent is
underlined should just cause the inner element to get two sets of
underlining).
> Example Problem #1:
>
> If an end-user sets their local stylesheet to:
> blockquote { font-style: italic; }
> then the standard
> em { font-style: italic; }
> fails to serve it purpose (to draw attention by being typed
> differently) in the following example:
> <blockquote>This is an example of <em>emphasized</em> text.</blockquote>
Exactly. That is why this is a good feature. (Maybe what we need is
not so much "toggle" as "toggle-italic" and "toggle-oblique".)
--
Ian Hickson
U+2642 U+2651
U+262E U+2603 U+263A
Received on Thursday, 27 May 1999 08:48:17 UTC