RE: [css3-page] examples in 3.3.2 (page size) are 'US-centric'(?)

Hi Ernest,

> Just because you think "A4" is obvious does not mean that others will
> think so, or that it will turn out to be the best solution.  "A4" is
> certainly an obvious choice to consider, but for the reasons I have
> already given, I don't think that it is the best choice.

It is not that *I* think that it is obvious, it is that A4 paper is
commonly referred to as such by the wider user community. It is marketed
and sold as being "A4 paper" and printers and photocopiers offer "A4"  
paper trays and folders are sold as "A4 folders" for holding A4 paper and
so on and so on. The ISO acronym never comes up outside of forums devoted
to standardisation such as this one.

Allowing the ISO prefix is fine and consistent. But *requiring* it is
unnecessary, redundant, pedantic and confusing for ordinary users.

> Had you followed the recommendation in this case it would have been:
> 
> @page {size: -yeslogic-a4 }

One look at this monstrosity makes it pretty obvious why we did not
implement it this way. Not to mention that identifiers cannot begin with a
hyphen-minus in CSS 2, the highest level of CSS that is currently a W3C
Recommendation (and has not been deprecated). Only the Working Draft of
CSS 2 Revision 1 allows this syntax.

If we were implementing a new property that was likely to conflict with an
existing or future property from another vendor, then we would need to
qualify it appropriately to avoid conflicts. But as I said before,
qualifying "A4" in this manner is ridiculous.

Similarly with the extension in the usage of the portrait and landscape 
keywords:

@page { size: A4 landscape }

It would be difficult to keep a straight face while documenting this:

@page { size: -yeslogic-A4 -yeslogic-landscape }

> (Note the extra - in front.)  Yes, the recommendation does put an extra
> burden on those who seek to extend the standards beyond the current
> recommendations, but I can't fault the reasoning behind it.

Standardisation follows implementation, not the other way around.

Best regards,

Michael

-- 
YesLogic Prince prints XML!
http://yeslogic.com

Received on Friday, 23 January 2004 22:53:51 UTC