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

On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 11:20 AM, David Hyatt <hyatt@apple.com> wrote:

> I don't agree with the idea that border-image should suppress box-shadow,
> but I also don't agree with the idea of drawing a box-shadow that follows
> border lines/curves that you don't even plan to display.  If box-shadow used
> the border-image as a mask when drawing, then that seems like the best
> solution.


Then I think that we probably just differ on what is best and what is second
best. To me, "drawing a box-shadow that follows border lines/curves that you
don't even plan to display", as happens in current implementations, would be
the worst solution. So would you agree that having the border-image suppress
the box-shadow would be better than the current implementations, and thus
your second choice if (for whatever reason) you couldn't have your first
choice of using the border-image as a mask for dynamically generated
shadows?

For me, choosing between those top two choices, I'm more in favor of the
authorial control of setting the shadow in the image editing program that
authors would use for the images anyway. I find the arguments against it
(that the shadow having the same image resolution as the border image is a
bad thing, or that dynamically changing the color or size or angle of the
shadow without loading another image, or that having the clickable area no
worse than it is for current authors using background images to create their
shadows, or that it is hard to create convincing shadows in SVG using the
tools that authors would likely use) to be unconvincing, and of very little
merit.

So here is how I would rate the choices:

*1/2 star: *drawing a box-shadow that follows border lines/curves that you
don't even plan to display

*4 stars:* box-shadow used the border-image as a mask (if the issue of
transparency can be dealt with in a fairly reasonable way)

*5 stars:* let the artist creating the raster border images also create the
raster shadows, and suppress the border-box-following box-shadow in the same
way that the padding-box-following borders are suppressed.