Re: [css3-images] linear-gradient keywords and angles are opposite

On Jun 9, 2011, at 9:06 PM, Rik Cabanier <cabanier@gmail.com> wrote:

> I completely agree.
> I made a similar proposal last December but was told the spec was too far along.

That wasn't the only reason. But it had been debated a lot before that. 

> A vector is much easier to define which probably why it is used in most design software.

All the design software I have ever seen that lets you specify direction by typing in text, does so via angles. Angles are simpler and easier for humans to read and immediately suss the direction (you just have to know where zero is, and which was the degrees progress around a reference circle).

The extra power of being able to start or stop the gradient at arbitrary points is already present to a huge degree with the color stops. The cases where that isn't quite enough are few and far between, and still doable via SVG. I'm all for simplicity to serve the vast need,s and not adding extra syntax that adds very little extra expressiveness for a few rare edge cases. 

If you look at some of those examples that Tab posted a while back, with stars and plaids and such being created via gradients, I'm extra happy that Tab kept the syntax limited. It gets hard enough to read once there are multiple backgrounds, each with multiple color stops and precisely placed color stop locations. Layering bg-position syntax within that, while there might also be actual background position for the tiling of the gradients, and you end up with a mire of numbers that are slow to comprehend. I'd liken it to multiplying GPS coordinates together to try to imagine where something is in the world.

Received on Friday, 10 June 2011 04:38:31 UTC