RE: font-style: toggle-italic

Jonny Axelsson wrote:
> I haven't yet had any use for this personally. If say the B element is
> presented as italic, and so is everything inside an "intro" 
> DIV, the "first
> level" style sheet is
> 
>    div.intro {font-style:italic}
>    b {font-style:italic}
> 
> I have then added
> 
>    div.intro b {font-style:normal}
> 
> To toggle b back to normal, and left it at that.

And indeed, that works.  But you have to style especially for the
combination.
It would be nice if the combination worked without requiring that foresight,
because there are many, many possible combinations.

It's a matter of things working together without anyone needing to
plan for it.  Orthogonality.

If a W3C core stylesheet says,
  em { font-style: toggle-italic; }

and I write,
  div.intro { font-style: italic; }

without really thinking about it, then it'd be a pleasant surprise,
to me, that <em> did the right thing typographically when it occurred
in the block of italic text.

In such a case, who should write the style for the combination?  Me
or the W3C Core Styles?  Neither of us necessarily knows the details of
the other's stylesheet.  So it's cool if the language can handle the
interaction for me.

-- 
Jason Orendorff

Received on Wednesday, 22 March 2000 03:58:05 UTC