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

On Feb 9, 2009, at 11:47 PM, Brad Kemper wrote:

>
> 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.

Rather than suppressing the shadow, what about using the border-image  
as a mask when deciding how to draw the shadow?  In theory it should  
be possible to intelligently draw a more complex shadow for a border- 
image object.

dave