Re: [CSSWG] Minutes and Resolutions 2009-02-04: box-shadow and border-image

On Feb 9, 2009, at 7:56 PM, Robert O'Callahan wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 4:41 PM, Brad Kemper <brad.kemper@gmail.com>  
> wrote:
> The point is that authors use things like that all the time, and  
> would rather have completely idiotic property names than to have  
> their practical functionality removed.
>
> And yet, you want to remove the functionality of using box-shadow  
> with border-image...

The border-images images can have the shadows built in, putting them  
exactly where they are needed, instead of where a solid border would  
be if it had been drawn. It is a more valuable feature to be able to  
have the 'box-shadow' property as a fallback, just as 'border' is a  
fallback. I am not proposing the elimination of anything that would  
not be missed (because of its useless placement and its replication in  
the other property). I am instead proposing a feature in which the two  
properties can be used more smartly together. That is what you prefer  
to hamper.

> Someday we'll be able to create nice layout columns, in a wide  
> variety of UAs, without using tables or floats to do so. But until  
> then we'd rather use something called "float" to create a column  
> that isn't really floating, than to have that power removed because  
> of the name. So whatever you call the thing that creates drop  
> shadows around boxes, it should have the features that make most  
> sense for accomplishing what authors need it to accomplish (within  
> practical limits, of course), to serve the greatest numbers of their  
> users.
>
> ... to serve the small set of users who don't download images *and*  
> care about seeing shadows.

...to make the box-shadow feature useful in situations where it  
otherwise wouldn't be, while also bringing style to those who  
otherwise would get less as a direct result of the image-border  
feature.