Re: Multiple Background Images

Ted,

(CC to www-style; relevant and possibly interesting discussion)

> Accessibility is a subject that you introduced, claiming
> people would write pure SVG (or *yuck* proprietary
> Flash), making their pages inaccessable.  (Perhaps you never
> heard of accessable SVG, but that's not how I suggested
> using it, anyway)

Yes, I introduced the topic of accessibility in the context of SVG or Flash
being used for content presentation rather than applying CSS to HTML/XHTML;
when I wrote that accessibility is irrelevant, it was in the context of the
relationship between decorative borders and content.

> It's certainly possible to modify the CSS spec to do all of the
> tricks that could be done in images, if that's where you want
> the complexity to go.  Why don't we add all of the filters,
> transforms, etc. that are already available in SVG at the same
> time?
>
> It's also possible to modify SVG spec if necessary to make
> backgrounds that not only behave well, but can be used in a
> variety of other contexts as well in a more general fashion.
>
> I envision a graphic designer could come up with a SVG background
> that looks good for certificates and scales well and call it call it
> certificate.svg.  When you want that type of background, anyone
> can use background: url(certificate.svg) as the style without having
> to piece it together in the CSS.
>
> A repeating image around the inside edge would only be a small part of the
> possibilities.  Curving lines radiating out from the center could be
> combined
> with that in a nicely scalable design that you couldn't get with just a
> repeating image.  The trouble modifying the CSS spec pays less
> dividends than the more general and powerful SVG.  Control of what
> happens in the center and where the edges meet are also important design
> considerations that shouldn't be overlooked, and all that would be much
> better handled at together in SVG.

Personally, I could easily enough do all of the calculations via whatever
scripting/programming language is necessary to achieve the best effects, but
simple presentation methods for simple concepts (and the concept of multiple
background images is certainly simple regardless of whether particular
implementations are more simple or more complex) should be available for
less technically-minded content publishers.  Furthermore, I do not think it
is prudent to rely upon scripting/programming or particular file
formats--support for either or both of which may be absent or disabled in
the client--for what could be more-widely useful functionality if provided
via CSS.  I agree with you that CSS should not be bloated, but I do think
there are appropriate additions and I think this is one of them.


Kind regards,

Brian Sexton

Received on Monday, 13 December 2004 00:17:48 UTC