[CSS21] Make XHTML <body> magic just like HTML <body>

Having special rules for <body> in HTML but not in XHTML makes it harder  
for authors to switch to and from XHTML.

There are lots and lots of pages that rely on the magicness in HTML. So it  
can't be removed from HTML.

There are very few XHTML pages on the Web. Some of them might look  
incorrect because the author thought the <body> was magic, but it wasn't  
(resulting in e.g. the <body>'s background not covering the canvas). (I've  
seen such documents, told the author about this incompatibility, and then  
got it "fixed".) I think literally not a single document relies on it  
*not* being magic. Making it magic for XHTML would thus not break any  
documents.

I don't think it's too late to make the special rules that apply to HTML  
<body> apply to XHTML as well for CSS2.1.

I think these are the special properties:

  * 'background-color'
  * 'background-image'
  * 'overflow'


I know this has been proposed before. I still think it should be  
considered again.

Regards,
-- 
Simon Pieters

Received on Wednesday, 7 March 2007 18:58:08 UTC