RE: 'initial' | 'inherit' inconsistency

We don't have to literally add 'initial | inherit' everywhere.

It could be ' | <cascade>' - or some better representation of these keywords -
that point to CSS3 Values & Units ? That still doesn't address your concern
wrt grammar legibility but having *nothing* there, while ideal for editors, is 
neither reader-friendly nor complete. CSS specs are already hard enough to 
read for those who do not implement browsers for a living. As these documents 
also constitute an authoritative reference, it would help if one would not have
to read the whole thing in order to get the full syntax.

Maybe we could also have an appendix table that lists all the properties in a 
Module with all their supported values e.g. a simplified version of CSS2.1's 
Appendix F ? That might be useful in its own right. I often use the latter
as a reference and to navigate 2.1; for CSS users a table of properties/values
is a useful TOC.



> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-style-request@w3.org [mailto:www-style-request@w3.org] On
> Behalf Of fantasai
> Sent: Friday, October 29, 2010 12:21 AM
> To: Eric A. Meyer
> Cc: Tab Atkins Jr.; www-style@w3.org
> Subject: Re: 'initial' | 'inherit' inconsistency
> 
> On 10/28/2010 11:17 AM, Eric A. Meyer wrote:
> > At 10:58 AM -0700 10/28/10, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
> >
> >> It is somewhat inconsistent, but CSS3 Values & Units makes the
> >> definitive statement that all properties everywhere accept 'inherit'
> >> and 'initial', and defines what that means.
> >
> > Yes, but not many modules reference it, which makes whatever it says
> > inapplicable in those cases, does it not? And then there's the cases
> > where properties explicitly define an 'initial' that might be at odds
> > with the universal 'initial' that Values & Units defines. It's fairly
> > hard to tell. It also implies that any property that explicitly lists
> > 'inherit' could be defining something different than the universal
> > 'inherit'. Maybe they aren't, but do we know? For sure?
> > I'm still firmly on the side of explicitly listing them on each
> property
> > definition rather than relying on a blanket statement located
> somewhere
> > other than the property definition. Doing so greatly reduces the
> chances
> > of confusion.
> 
> I would prefer to have each CSS3 module add its own blanket statement
> the way CSS3 Backgrounds and Borders does [1], but not include the
> values in their property definitions. The grammar for many CSS3
> properties is already fairly complex: grouping the entire thing in
> an extra set of brackets in order to add "| inherit" just makes it
> more confusing.
> 
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-background/#values
> 
> ~fantasai
>

Received on Friday, 29 October 2010 17:25:53 UTC