Re: [css3] Suggestion: Selector variables or “synonyms”

On Feb 9, 2008, at 1:16 PM, David Woolley wrote:

>> I know you weren't asking me, but I would like to answer based on  
>> the way I suggested handling this sort of thing (see quoted text  
>> below), in which constants are merely placeholders for other text.  
>> Thus, the definition of the constants would not be involved in the  
>> cascade, and
>
> That would only be true if the mechanism only had file scope (in  
> which case it is a candidate for server side processing).  Is that  
> what you meant?

I'm not sure what you mean. Don't author style sheets normally just  
have file scope (assuming that be "file" you mean the HTML file that  
the styles are attached, embedded, or otherwise included within)?

In terms of server side processing, you seem to be suggesting that  
instead of adding a useful capability (one that is often requested in  
one form or another) to CSS, that we should just use a more capable  
language to generate the CSS dynamically. I don't agree. This is a  
very useful feature proposal that (unlike other aspects of  
programming languages) can make the style sheets easier to write and  
understand.

>> The last value in the constant assignment will have an implied  
>> semicolon if it is missing. Adding "!important" to a rule as part  
>> of the value of the "constant" parameter would thus be ignored, in  
>> the following example:
>
> The point about important was that, if the scope is not limited to  
> the file, user !important rules must not be compromised by author  
> selector equivalences.

Try as I might, I can't fathom how my proposed syntax, which is  
basically a way of creating and using placeholders for CSS text,  
could possibly have any compromising effect on user !important rules.  
Once the UA expanded the placeholders into the text they contained,  
they would be no different from any other text the author puts into  
his or her style sheets. Perhaps you could explain more, or perhaps  
you misunderstood my proposal?