Re: WebKit now supports CSS Variables

On Jun 24, 2008, at 1:49 PM, Håkon Wium Lie wrote:

> Also sprach David Hyatt:
>
>>>> In WebKit at least, the parsing of the declaration with the  
>>>> variable
>>>> call is delayed until all stylesheets have been loaded (we don't  
>>>> show
>>>> any content in WebKit while stylesheets are still loading).
>>>
>>> Ok, so you don't see the problem outlined above. Opera supports
>>> progressive rendering of content as style sheets are loaded so for  
>>> us
>>> the problem is real.
>>>
>>> Progessive rendering of content is a long-established concept in CSS
>>> and I don't think the benefit of variables outweight the cost of
>>> breaking progressive rendering.
>>
>> I didn't say CSS variables broke progressive rendering.  They don't.
>
> It breaks, or at least deteriorates, one kind of progressive
> rendering: the display of documents as style sheets are loaded. I
> understand that WebKit doesn't have this problem as you wait until all
> style sheets are loaded (isn't there a timeout?). For browsers that
> support this kind of progressive rendering, the proposal will have
> adverse effects.
>
> I still think variables could be a good idea, though -- just not
> global variables.


I disagree.  I think limiting variables to be local to a stylesheet  
greatly hinders their use, since site-wide templates would not be  
possible.  I think progressive rendering is a strange thing to worry  
about, given that IE, Firefox and Safari all avoid it on the desktop  
whenever possible (I'm surprised Opera does not), and that progressive  
rendering inevitably yields rendering artifacts and ugly display.  CSS  
files these days are frequently so fundamental to the look of a site  
that when they load out of order (or don't load at all), you just end  
up with really ugly rendering.

dave

Received on Tuesday, 24 June 2008 18:55:40 UTC