New CSS3 Color Names (was Last call comments on CSS3 module: color)

>Steven Pemberton:
>
>* The set of colours described is very non-uniform. Look at
>http://www.cwi.nl/~steven/css/x11huegraph.html as an example to see how
the
>hues are distributed: a vast over-representation of reds just to start
off
>with.
>

This seems to me to be a good enough reason for not adding X11 colors to
CSS3.

>* The names are just randomly put together. Some colours have a dark
>version (like red and darkred) but not all; 17 colours have 'dark'
>versions, but only 13 have 'light' versions. There's a mediumblue, but
not
>mediumred; there are 15 varieties of 'blue' but only 6 of 'red'; there
>are cultural references built in ('dodgerblue'???). So I can neither
>construct the colour I want, nor know what a colour name refers to
>(gainsboro? papayawhip?)
>
>* On top of that, the naming scheme is inconsistent:
>darkgray is lighter than gray!
>lightpink is darker than pink!

Another very good reason to not add X11 Colors to CSS3.  Inconsistency
is not good in any standard.

(See http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2002May/0122.html )

I like solution 2 from above:
>2) Take a consistent naming scheme that properly addresses all
dimensions >of the color space, and map this naming scheme
algorithmically to >appropriate colours. For instance:

with a few changes:
(most from
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2002May/0143.html)

<color>::= [<saturation> || <lightness> || <transparency>] <hue>
<lightness>::= extra-dark | dark | semi-dark | semi-light | light |
               extra-light | lighter | darker
<saturation>::= extra-dull | dull | semi-dull | semi-bright |
                bright | extra-bright | duller | brighter
<transparency>::= opaque | semi-opaque | semi-transparent | transparent
<hue>::= <prime> | <general> | <special>
<prime>::= red | green | blue | white | cyan | magenta | yellow | black
<general>::= navy | lime | teal | aqua | maroon | purple | fuchsia |
olive |
             gray | silver
<special>::= pink | brown | tan | orange | yellow-green | green-cyan |
             cyan-blue | blue-magenta | magenta-red | <possible others>

I think if x11 colors are truly needed then they should be added like
either this:

color: x11(palegoldenrod), light bright semi-opaque yellow, white;

(See http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2002May/0144.html)

or if there is no way to keep x11 colors from being added as proposed
then like this:

color: palegoldenrod, light bright semi-opaque yellow, white;

if x11 colors are available use that first

Then depreciate x11 colors in the next version of css.



Benjamin D. Gray
WIND Web Developer
http://uwyo.edu/wind/

Received on Wednesday, 29 May 2002 17:03:03 UTC