Re: display property

> not that any particular UA defaults to using inline.  As already noted, 
> most will make the default "block" in their own internal stylesheets.

Which raises an interesting conflict with popular expectations
of browsers.  Most authors think there is one true default rendering
of HTML that all browsers are striving towards, and so only add minor
tweaks to the styling when striving for pixel perfection (who cares
about other non-pixel media!).  Actually, as browser internal style sheet
selectors are not formally constrained, one can't even write an author
style sheet that is guaranteed to fully define the styling of a document
(even assuming complete implementation of all properties and values),
without knowing the effective internal style sheet of all the browsers.

Market pressures tend to force browsers to conform to a de facto
standard internal style sheet, even though W3C actually has no standards
for how HTML should be rendered in detail.  The market pressures come
from a refusal to accept that HTML is not a page description language,
and because developers respond to author rather than user pressures,
because authors buy authoring software and servers.

Received on Thursday, 26 June 2003 17:55:35 UTC