- From: Simon Pieters <simonp@opera.com>
- Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2012 06:32:50 +0100
- To: "John Daggett" <jdaggett@mozilla.com>
- Cc: www-style@w3.org
On Mon, 19 Mar 2012 01:01:09 +0100, John Daggett <jdaggett@mozilla.com> wrote: > > Simon Pieters wrote: > >> > Unquoted family names must be sequences of CSS identifiers, in both >> > CSS 2.1 and CSS3 Fonts. So you're right, family names don't need to >> > be quoted but I still think recommending quotes is a good rule of >> > thumb, it avoids authors needing to understand precisely what is and >> > isn't a "sequence of CSS identifiers" (the spec does show several >> > examples of invalid names). >> >> In that case the spec should recommend to always use quotes for font >> family names. I'm fine with that outcome, but I'm not so happy with >> the current text. > > No, I'm not suggesting (nor does the spec suggest) that family names > *always* be quoted, either as a requirement or as a rule of thumb. > Authors have quoted names in the past because browsers didn't always > support names with spaces. With user agents that follow the CSS 2.1 > rules, names only need to be quoted when they aren't a sequence of CSS > identifiers. But since authors are human and don't keep parsing rules > at their fingertips, I think it's fine to suggest a rule of thumb. > Maybe it's not some shining ideal but it works in practice. Removing the mention of whitespace would make the rule of thumb simpler. >> > In real world use, this is rarely a problem. Font family names may >> > have spaces but typically don't start with numbers or use punctuation >> > characters. Yes, I'm sure there are exceptions out there but they >> > generally aren't used on the web or in interchange situations (e.g. >> > email). >> >> Still, many authors quote their font family names if they have spaces >> (and >> omit the quotes if they don't), because that's what they have been told >> to >> do. > > That's because of spotty implementation support in the past. Ah. Well then, surely it's safe to change the recommendation now to be more accurate and not mention whitespace. > As more > and more authors understand that this is a rule of the past, we'll move > beyond it. Font family names which can't be left unquoted (e.g. Courier > 10) > are relatively rare in practice. > > We've come up with a reasonable syntax rule (i.e. family names that > aren't sequences of CSS identifiers must be quoted) but if authors want > to quote all family names, that works too. The specs define the exact > rules but list a rule of thumb useful for those who don't want to delve > into whether a given font family name matches the syntax rule or not. > >> > What *is* still a problem is the way in which browsers recognize as >> > family names a variety of other font names. For example, "Arial" is >> > the name of a font family, names given to individual faces within that >> > family are *not*. Incorrect name matching happens with many GDI-based >> > browsers (Chrome/IE7+8/Opera) which recognize full names (e.g. "Arial >> > Bold"). It occurs with Webkit browsers on OSX/iOS which recognize >> > Postscript names (e.g. "Arial-BoldMT"). These browsers will all fail >> > the CSS 2.1 test suite tests that check for this. This is a real >> > problem because authors will use "Arial Bold", see that it works in >> > their given browser/environment and assume that it will work across >> > platforms/browsers. >> >> That's a separate issue. > > Sure, my point is simply that family names that require quotes aren't a > problem in general but other issues, such as the way user agents match > different additional naming schemes or handle localized family > names *are* problems! > > Cheers, > > John Daggett cheers -- Simon Pieters Opera Software
Received on Monday, 19 March 2012 05:33:17 UTC