Re: UI WD (cursor)

--- Tantek Çelik <tantek@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> Matthew Brealey wrote:
> > Yes. I have pointed this out in respect of the 'spinning' type.
> Needless
> > to say, my arguments have fallen on deaf ears.
> 
> I have not seen that comment made previously.  Was it made on www-style?
>  I
> must have missed it.
> 
> Please repeat (or provide a link to) your feedback re: the 'spinning'
> cursor
> value.  If you have a suggestion for a better name, please let me know.

<blockquote
cite="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/1999Nov/0178.html">
This has been badly named insofar as it makes
unreasonable assumptions as to the nature of the OS'
rendering of the cursor (why should it be spinning ?).
Such assumptions are best reserved for the url()
format - the point of cursor keywords IMHO is to use
the cursor with which the user will be familiar, and
therefore to adopt this name is a mistake.

More correctly it should be cursor: working, since
this does not make any assumptions as to the rendering
of the cursor.
</blockquote>

Note that the functional cursors (i.e., not url()) have almost no place in
HTML. Unfortunately the principal cursor implementation (Win IE) to date
does not  seem to have realised this, implementing the *-resize values as
non-system-dependent - cursor: n-resize in Win IE results in:
^
|
whereas the system cursor for n-resize is a doubleheaded arrow; i.e.,
s-resize=n-resize. The result of this is that people have started to use
the functional cursor keywords in a rendering-dependent way - I have seen
A {cursor: s-resize} used to get a specific rendering, something that is
entirely inappropriate. The person concerned will of course think if and
when they test in Mozilla, think that it is a bug in Mozilla.

Probably the sole exception to the 'functional cursors have no place in
HTML' rule is BODY {cursor: default} to override the common behaviour of
associating cursor: text with text elements, which many people do not like.

=====
----------------------------------------------------------
From Matthew Brealey (http://members.tripod.co.uk/lawnet (for law)or http://members.tripod.co.uk/lawnet/WEBFRAME.HTM (for CSS))
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Received on Sunday, 20 February 2000 11:18:33 UTC