- From: Philip TAYLOR <Philip-and-LeKhanh@Royal-Tunbridge-Wells.Org>
- Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:55:30 +0000
- To: Brad Kemper <brkemper@comcast.net>
- CC: CSS <www-style@w3.org>
Brad Kemper wrote: >> How can CSS "style the page in a predictable way" >> when the effects of the cascade are unpredictable >> to the page author ? >> >> Philip TAYLOR > > Huh? OK, let me try to express this more clearly. Suppose that you, as page author, wish to style <H1>s left-justified in red; when the page is viewed through a user agent, an "!Important" rule in the users's style sheet will take precedence over yours, as per http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/cascade.html > 6.4.1 Cascading order > > To find the value for an element/property combination, > user agents must apply the following sorting order: > > 1. [snip, not relevant] > 2. The primary sort of the declarations is by weight > and origin: for normal declarations, author style > sheets override user style sheets which override > the default style sheet. For "!important" declarations, > user style sheets override author style sheets which > override the default style sheet. "!important" > declaration override normal declarations. Thus if the user specifies that he (or she) wants <H1>s to be centred and in green, his (or her) choice will take precendence if he (she) makes that rule "!Important". In other words, when you (as page author) attempt to style a document, you can have no /a priori/ knowledge of the environment in which it will be viewed, and thus no /a priori/ knowledge as to which of your style rules will be honoured and which ignored/over-ruled. Philip TAYLOR
Received on Thursday, 3 January 2008 15:55:42 UTC