Re: UI WD

>From: Ian Hickson <py8ieh@bath.ac.uk>
>Date: Sat, Feb 19, 2000, 10:30 AM
>
> On Sat, 19 Feb 2000, Matthew Brealey wrote:
>> Furthermore, I would like to see the removal of the hyphens from the
>> hyphenated fonts, which would be both in line with the UI colours
>
> I would be more inclined to suggest the opposite -- the UI colours
> should IMHO use hyphens. This would be more in line with the rest of
> the CSS specification ...

That would be inconsistent both with CSS-2 and with shipping implementations.

 http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/ui.html#system-colors

> ... and what has been implemented.

AFAIK, the opposite is true.  The only shipping implementations of CSS2 system
color values (WinIE4 and later, MacIE4.5 and later) do *not* have hyphens.

Now, as far as the system fonts,

On Sat, 19 Feb 2000, Matthew Brealey wrote:
> Furthermore, I would like to see the removal of the hyphens from the
> hyphenated fonts, which would be both in line with the UI colours and with
> what has been implemented.

Matthew Brealey is correct in that the unhyphenated form of the system fonts
in CSS2 is what has been implemented in currently shipping implementations.
In fact, unhyphenated values for system fonts were in the CSS-2 working draft
less than four months before it became a Rec:

 http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-css2-19980128/fonts.html#propdef-font

But sometime within those four months the system font values were edited to be
hyphenated, and unfortunately, that particular subtle change was unnoticed by
those who had already implemented what had been written up.

Matthew's points about 1. consistency between the UI colors and the UI fonts,
and 2. the implementation of the unhyphenated values are good points.  Add to
that that if one were trying to make them consistent, far fewer values have to
change to unhyphenate the system font values rather than to hyphenate the
system color values.  And to have *system* values be unhyphenated actually
helps distinguish them from other multi-word values.

It has also been pointed out to me that the system font values in the CSS3 UI
draft are not as complete and thorough as the system color values, and
therefore need to be extended.  I think it makes the most sense to make the
additions and the unhyphenation changes to the system font values at the same
time, that way their names will be very much in synch (as far as number of
different user interface elements and their different states covered) and
consistent with the system color values.

I will make these changes in the next CSS UI draft (which will probably change
from being "CSS3 UI additions" to "CSS3 UI module").

Tantek

Received on Sunday, 20 February 2000 07:39:49 UTC