Re: [css4-color] @color-keyword Color Keywords

On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 6:15 AM, Eli Morris-Heft
<eli.morris.heft@gmail.com> wrote:
> While working on a website that is about to suffer a subtle but
> wide-reaching color scheme change, I was thinking about how nice it would
> have been to be able to create color keywords for my color scheme colors.
> Then I recalled that I had read something similar on this list a while back,
> so I went and read the relevant thread in the archives[1]. It seems like
> there was a lot of discussion but that it didn't go all that far. So I'm
> throwing my proposal into the mix. This proposal is exactly what it says on
> the tin: a way to define new color keywords.
>
> @color-keyword {
>     keyword: ochre;
>     color: hsl(6, 82%, 37%);
> }
>
> a {
>     color: ochre; /* is the same as color: hsl(6, 82%, 37%); */
> }
>
> The value for keyword must be a proper CSS keyword. (Which I believe means
> it must match /[a-zA-z0-9-]+/.)
> The value for color must be a <color>.
>
> While I can see that this is almost exactly a proper subset of the use cases
> for CSS variables, there doesn't seem to be a lot of movement on variable
> and this is a specific use case that I feel is common enough and simple
> enough that a separate treatment is fine. I think that the main practical
> use will be to make using color schemes easier (so you don't have to
> remember your color's RGB and HSL values) and to make skinning and theming
> easier: instead of having to reproduce all the selectors for the whole site
> in a different file and override their colors, one can simply name the
> colors and swap out the CSS file that defines those colors.

Unless it offers significant functionality over plain variables, I
don't think it's worthwhile to define mini-variables that only work in
limited circumstances.  This is one place where plain variables
address your case exactly.  We should instead work on plain variables.

~TJ

Received on Saturday, 11 December 2010 19:54:31 UTC