Re: [css3-color] transparency, opacity, translucency

On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 10:56 PM, Brad Kemper <brad.kemper@gmail.com> wrote:
> There is a section in CSS Color called "Transparency: the ‘opacity’ property" [1].
>
> I believe the word "transparency" is misused there. "Transparent" is defined in CSS Color as 'rgba(0,0,0,0)' and that fits with other English definitions too, in which transparent is at one end of the scale and opaque is at the other. The scale itself is one of translucency. "Translucent" usually means something between opaque (or completely opaque) and transparent (not opaque at all). Thus, I think the chapter should be renamed "Translucency: the ‘opacity’ property".

The definitions of the words that I learned was that a "transparent"
object let details pass through it, while a "translucent" object
merely let light through it without sufficient detail to see what's on
the other side.  Basically the difference between glass and frosted
glass.  Under these definitions, 'opacity' makes the object
transparent.  While "transparent" *can* mean rgba(0,0,0,0), in English
it can also refer to lesser degrees of transparency, with "fully
transparent" used to disambiguate when necessary.

So, I think the definitions of the words are sufficiently loose that
the current wording of that section is fine.

~TJ

Received on Friday, 25 February 2011 17:31:50 UTC