Re: X11 Colors (was Last call comments on CSS3 module: color)

Daniel Glazman wrote:
>
> Conclusions : right, the X11 color set should not be a standard 'de
> jure'... ooops, too bad, that's already a standard 'de facto'. We have
> to live with it, I'm afraid.

Tantek Çelik wrote:
>
> Yes, the X11 color set has already been accepted through the last call
> process TWICE already (SVG 1.0, SVG 1.1) and for that reason alone they
> will be included in CSS3 color - indeed, CSS implementations of X11 color
> predate SVG implementations by quite some time.


SVG extends parts of CSS, and not all of these extensions have been
transferred back into cannonical CSS. The X11 color set can remain
an SVG CSS extension; I don't see any reason why it must become part
of CSS3:color.

As for a lot of browsers having implemented it already, the same can
be said of <td background="image.gif">. Note that while 'bgcolor' was
standardized (and deprecated) by HTML 4, 'background' did not make it
into the specification.

As Steven Pemberton has pointed out, the process of deprecation does
exist to gradually get rid of language features no longer desired. If
codifying X11 colors into CSS3 is necessary, then do so and deprecate
them, as HTML 4 did with many HTML features. What compelling argument
prevents this route?

If you think X11 name support is important for the future, then I
recommend you take Kynn's suggestion and separate it out of raw color
values with functional notation. This leaves the syntax open to better
naming schemes CSS may want to adopt in the future.

~fantasai

Received on Monday, 27 May 2002 18:23:02 UTC