Re: Font definition

 From Ernest Cline's message:

> However, in order to do that you'd have to increase the complexity of 
> the CSS parser so that it can handle unknown keywords.

The keywords would be of a different format such as %keyword% or 
${keyword}. The increase in complexity would just be a symbol table 
would it not? If we enforced that the constants must be defined before 
they are referenced, we would still only need one pass, I think. The UA 
could then drop the table before parsing user styles.

> It increases the workload involved in interpreting CSS for what would 
> be at most a marginal gain in usability, with no gain in capability.

I'm not sure how great the cost increase would be and it would be a 
neat feature.


 From David Woolley's message:

> I suspect you are thinking in standard designer "I must totally 
> control the user experience" mode, whereas CSS has a fundamental rule 
> that the user has last say.

I don't think the purpose of the suggestion was to override the user's 
preferences, but to add a tool to make CSS management easier. In the 
same way as CSS makes writing HTML easier.

> This basic idea has been proposed and rejected several times over the 
> last few years.

Then maybe it's worth considering more seriously?

Ben


(q)	Ben Godfrey?
(a)	Web Developer and Designer
	See http://aftnn.org/ for details

Received on Thursday, 29 May 2003 17:04:48 UTC