- From: Boris Zbarsky <bzbarsky@mit.edu>
- Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 20:08:01 -0500
- To: Felix Miata <mrmazda@ij.net>
- CC: www-style@w3.org
Felix Miata wrote:
> The way I read the language in the specs, using the font property is
> supposed to reset all properties to their initial values
Yes.
> and then apply any values explicit among the parameters supplied to font.
Yes.
> To my understanding, this use of "initial values" means discarding all
> inheritance derived from author or user styles
No, it means specifying whatever is listed in the "initial value" field for the
relevant property, as http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/cascade.html#x1 (which you
referenced) says.
In other words, specifying
font: 70%/1 familyname;
is exactly equivalent to:
font-style: normal;
font-variant: normal;
font-weight: normal;
font-size: medium;
line-height: normal;
font-family: initial; // should set the default user-agent family, basically
font-size: 70%;
line-height: 1;
font-family: familyname;
Note that this is all happening while the _specified_ value is being determined.
There is no inheritance involved yet; the resulting specified value of
"font-size" is 70%. This leads to a computed value of "11.2px" in your case,
since the computed value of font-size is an absolute length.
> What is it I'm missing regarding the definition of initial value?
Presumably the part that says:
The initial value of each property is indicated in the property's definition.
That would be the second sentence of http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/cascade.html#x1
> What does this "reset" actually accomplish?
Consider a user stylesheet that has:
p { font-weight: bold; }
and an author stylesheet that has:
p { font: 12px/1 Times; }
The "reset" accomplishes the specified value of "font-weight" for <p> being
"normal".
-Boris
Received on Wednesday, 1 June 2005 01:08:12 UTC