Re: [CSS21] properties for table-column (In HTML: COL) & table-column-group (In HTML: COLGROUP) items.

On 6/28/05, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Jun 2005, ray whitfield wrote:
> >
> 
> The problem is that 'color' is an inherited property. Inheritance is done
> before layout (it has to be, since the layout depends on inheritance).
> You don't know what is a column until you've done the layout. To make
> 'color''s inheritance depend on the layout thus doesn't fit CSS's model.

The same argument can be made for not supporting any property
inherited or not: the inheritance issue is not the problem. Since the
border of a cell may be specified by a col property and a column can
not be known until the layout has occurred then the value of the
boarder property for an individual cell can not be known. Besides, the
background property supports the inherit parameter. Does it break the
CSS model if I specify inherit on one of the supported properties ?

> This isn't to say that the working group isn't aware of the problem and
> looking for a solution. But nobody has yet given a solution that is easily
> implementable in the CSS model. (What IE does is not implement a large
> chunk of the CSS model, thus bypassing the problem, and losing an
> important set of features.)

In my experience IE implements the CSS specification (with regard to
table elements and their properties) better than the entire family of
mozilla based browsers. For instance the visibility property for empty
cells. There are many instances in which firefox and various netscape
versions will fail to make these cells transparent. I have never seen
IE render these cells incorrectly. I am not a big fan of M$FT but
credit is due where it is earned.

-- 
There are 10 kinds of people in the world:
those who know binary and those who don't.

Received on Wednesday, 29 June 2005 21:02:53 UTC