Re: [css3-images] simplifying radial gradients

Sent from my iPad

On Oct 12, 2011, at 2:35 PM, Arron Eicholz <Arron.Eicholz@microsoft.com> wrote:

> In reading all of your examples I also got the impression that you were arguing to limit gradients to 'background-image'. If that is not the case then please try all of the examples that have been given using list-style-image.

I never said they should be limited to 'background-image', just that 'background-image' was the most common use by far, and we therefore do not need to replicate background syntax inside the gradient image. 

If other properties that use images lack the ability to move, crop, and size the images, then this is a general problem for those properties, and is not limited to when radial-gradient is used to generate the image. 

Even if a centered or side-centered radial gradient is imagined to require more moving, cropping, and sizing than other images in these other properties (which I've not seen any evidence for, and find highly dubious), there are still SVG gradients to fall back on in a pinch.

I am most familiar with how to do the moving, cropping, and sizing of images in backgrounds, not filters or whatever, so I've spoken about what I know. When used in backgrounds, many of the controls within radial-gradient are redundant and unnecessary complications. But I'll take a stab at other uses: If used as a value of the 'content' property, there also seem to be adequate means to move, crop, and size the images. I can't comment much on how they will be used in filters, but given that filters are tied into SVG, I would imagine there would be lots of control to move, crop, and size the images there too, or that SVG gradients could be used more directly there to do what CSS gradients couldn't. 

List-style-image seems like a fairly unimportant use case for adding a lot of complexity to radial gradient. That doesn't mean that radial-gradient shouldn't be used in list-style-image, just that with something that is usually pretty tiny there probably is not a lot of demand for extensive moving, cropping, and sizing of the image, or for really complex gradations of color starting in arbitrary places or being arbitrarily sized within the little image. There could be a good argument made that it is a fine place for drawing complex little pictures, but that is not the purpose of *-gradient. SVG or Web fonts are much better suitable for that. If you want your list-style-image to look like a radial gradation of color, then my simplified syntax is probably good enough. If not, there are other options.

Received on Thursday, 13 October 2011 03:28:19 UTC