Re: Fallbacks

> I really like your proposal [1], though I think it would be even better 
> if _every_ single property could have a comma separated fallback.

If we're about to exchange our preferences: I /don't/ 'like' it.

> There are quite some designers who "hate" 
> 'Verdana' for being to big, however, it is also a "nice" font (for 
> Windows).

Is 'hate' and 'nice' in any relationship to a CSS specification? I don't
even see any parallel to any other development related issue, since
subjective connotations and valuations ain't our job, either.

>    font:80% Verdana,100% Arial,sans-serif;

AFAIR, this case breaks the current implementation: 'The value is a
prioritized list of font family names and/or generic family names. Unlike
most other CSS properties, values are separated by a comma to indicate that
they are alternatives' [1]

> Designers could actually use the font without creating 
> accessibility/usability problems.

Designers don't create accessibility/usability problems with fonts. You
maybe mix it up with faulty implementations (e.g. the 'IE and pixel' tale)
and/or refer to Wingdings and friends.

> When a browser comes across that would happen to support 'Verdana' it 
> will load that font, if a browser doesn't found that font in its font 
> database it will go the next "serie" and tries to load the font 
> specified there [...].

And what does an UA do encountering an

    font-family: 'trebuchet ms', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;

declaration...?

> Lot's of people wanted a '@useragent' or '@support' rule [...]

Wow (excuse me).

>    color:change-red-amount(255),red;
> 
> CSS3 parsers would ignore the first value and give the element a red 
> color. Future parser may support the first value and will change only 
> the amount of red in the color and ignore the last property.

And that story is everything but compatible. Remember 'A user agent must
ignore a declaration with an invalid property name or an invalid value' [2]?
And current CSS implementations ain't that bad that they'd ignore this rule.


Best regards,
 Jens.


[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/fonts.html#font-family-prop
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/syndata.html#declaration


-- 
Jens Meiert
Interface Architect

http://meiert.com/

Received on Tuesday, 13 April 2004 05:00:41 UTC