Re: CSS Charter

On Mar 25, 2008, at 11:54 PM, Daniel Glazman wrote:

> Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
>
>> I hope this information is helpful to the Working Group.
>
> Absolutely. I have a few comments on your answers, namely about the
> reason why a new CSS property could not just refer to an SVG or SMIL
> chunk to achieve the effects you're looking for. After all, the filter
> property defined by the SVG spec uses a url() argument, and external
> stylesheets are themselves well uh external to the markup instance...
> A filter or transition or animation could be itself external to the
> CSS instance, and SVG- or SMIL-based, w/o mixing HTML and SVG or SMIL.

In making our proposal that these areas should be considered in scope,  
we're not necessarily assuming anything specific about the details.  
Your suggestion for filters may make sense. On the other hand, there  
are potential issues with that:

1) SVG's "filter" CSS property creates a conflict with IE's legacy  
"filter" property, and we have had to do some tricks to hide it to  
avoid being sent into IE-specific code paths on some web sites. It may  
create an even more serious compatibility issue to define "filter" in  
CSS proper in a way that is incompatible with IE.

2) It would be unfortunate if using a filter intrinsically required  
inserting presentational SVG markup in your document, or alternately  
loading an additional external resource, for the filter specification.  
At least for simple filters it seems desirable to be able to specify  
them full in CSS without reference to additional markup defining the  
filter.

3) It is not even clear to me if the SVG "filter" property is intended  
to work with references to external documents. The SVG 1.1 spec does  
not make this clear. SVG 1.2 Tiny has a table with lots of  
clarifications, and many similar references to specific kinds of  
elements are restricted to same-document, but the table does not cover  
filters since they are not in SVG 1.2 Tiny. In practice popular UAs  
often restrict such references to same-document.

These are the kinds of issues that I hope the CSS WG would consider if  
it was working on a filter spec for CSS.

> Other than that, I personnally agree on the simplicity of a
> CSS-based solution like the one you propose.

Well, we haven't proposed a specific solution for filters, but in  
general I think it should be possible to do at least simple cases in  
pure CSS.

>> In any case, I am a little concerns that as chair you seem to have  
>> somewhat negative feelings about this feature going into the  
>> charter discussion. It is of course your duty to be skeptical of  
>> charter proposals, and feature proposals generally, but I hope you  
>> will consider Apple's proposals with an open mind.
>
> I have no feeling at all. Your proposals are just introducing CSS  
> features already existing in at least two W3C RECs and it's
> absolutely normal to ask why the Membership should invest time,
> workforce, energy and money on the same subjects again, and why the
> Web should have two solutions to the same problem. Right ?
> Again I have no feeling at all. You're bringing in proposals and you
> can be sure these proposals will be discussed just like any other.

Thanks, due consideration is all we ask.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Wednesday, 26 March 2008 07:13:01 UTC