RE: Relative colors in CSS?

I do share your point of view but consider these cases.

I usually make pages with a small number of colors while I find myself using colors that
could be defined "relatively" the way Miki suggested. So, imagine a portal with many
subject areas. You could drop the multiple CSS files just by stating the base color in the
<head> part, changing all the scheme while the color *relationships* remain the same so the
"feel" stays the same and the code drops to minimum.

Or (ok I'm going too far here but...) you could use this in case of  "color blindness" if
my English are right, by giving the user the option to change dynamically the whole scheme
by changing one rule. Not bad for accessibility considerations.

So I should rephrase to "It would be extremely useful to have this choice".

Regards,
Manos


-----Original Message-----
From: www-style-request@w3.org [mailto:www-style-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Ben Morris
Sent: Monday, December 18, 2000 3:06 PM
To: Manos M. Batsis; www-style@w3.org
Cc: Miki. Wiik@Linuxsupport. To
Subject: RE: Relative colors in CSS?


As a developer, I don't think that this is where the solution should be.
This would be best done (in my view) by a style sheet editor application or
a css generating script.  I have recently made a page that will create a
stylesheet based on several variables.  So now I can specify a font face,
base font size, and several colors; and the .css file will be generated.

Besides, even if you have to change 100 lines on a .css file, that is OK
considering that you can have 100% control over the colors that will be
chosen, instead of the browser picking a color.  Colors are a pretty
delicate balance when it comes to matching each other.

Just my thoughts,
- Ben Morris


-----Original Message-----
From: www-style-request@w3.org [mailto:www-style-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of
Manos M. Batsis
Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2000 6:43 PM
To: www-style@w3.org
Cc: Miki. Wiik@Linuxsupport. To
Subject: RE: Relative colors in CSS?


I think this would be extremely useful. This would actually drop a style's
developing period by 50% for me since I usually start from one of my
templates.
VERY developer-friendly idea ;-)

Manos
-----Original Message-----
From: www-style-request@w3.org [mailto:www-style-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of
miki.wiik@linuxsupport.to
Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2000 11:28 PM
To: w3.org mailing Style
Subject: Relative colors in CSS?


Hi.

Do existing CSS standards, or ones being planned, include a way to define
colors relatively to their parents?

Example:

BODY {color : #CCCC99}

P {color : darker}

The reason I'm looking for this sort of solution is that quite often when
designing pages I use a set of colors that are more or less variations of
the same basic color. The background is a light tone, the following layer
(div) a bit darker, the following even darker plus a bit more red, etc.

Since almost all other values in CSS can be either absolute or relative (to
their parent), it seems only natural that colors would also.

A suggestion for different values:
Brighter, decreases all RGB values by, say 5%.
Darker, increases all RGB values by 5%.
+red, increase Red value by 5%.
-red, decrease Red value by 5%
++ by 10%.
+++ by 15%...
and combinations (or shorthand) +red --green +++blue

Having a way to define relative colors would IMO improve scalability (the
author would only have to define one starting colour, that could easily be
replaced by User stylesheets) and thus increase overall flexibility.

Regards, Miki Wiik

Received on Tuesday, 19 December 2000 04:29:48 UTC