Re: Proposal of @ua

On Oct 20, 2007, at 2:01 AM, Christof Hoeke wrote:

> just a thought:
>
> As probably only very few properties need to be UA specific it may  
> be easier (to author and maintain) to different on the property  
> level and not the rule or even @media level:
>
> div {
>     width and gecko: 80px;
>     width: 100px;
> }
>
> so like the syntax for MediaQuery, or maybe even
>
>     width[css:ua="Trident"]: 80px
>
> with an XPath like predicate syntax. I guess the actual syntax is  
> not the problem but where these things should be placed in the  
> first place
>
> Chris

That's an interesting idea. I can see the value of that, but  my own  
view is that maintainability by the author would be easier if all the  
rule exceptions for a given UA were in one place in the sheet,  
especially when new or alternate versions of the UA came out (or as  
old UAs became obsolete). Also, I imagine there would be more  
implementors on board if it only had to be implemented as @media or  
@ua that loads a set of rules or not, than if they had to implement a  
change to every property and how properties are read. I could be  
wrong about that, as I am not an implementor, but I am in favor of  
making something to deal with this as painless to implement as  
possible, in order to get it out there as quickly as possible.