Re: [css-colors] Specify the System Colors colors

On Friday 2013-08-30 13:21 -0700, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
> I share Dirk's concern.  I didn't think the idea that the System
> Colors were bad and security-harmful was anything controversial - I
> assumed that it was something already known and accepted.
> 
> I don't think we should let UA stylesheet concerns dictate what values
> we should expose to authors.  For example, Blink just added support
> for a -internal- prefix, which is only recognized in the UA stylesheet
> (and soon, other "browser-created" pages like the New Tab page).  This
> lets us do things with CSS when it's easier than doing without, but
> avoids exposing the properties to web content.

Sure.  Gecko has had privileged-stylesheet-only CSS for a while now.

> If Gecko did something
> similar, it could move its UA/UI usages over to the prefixed colors,
> which are accurate according to system settings, while still exposing
> just the neutered set to the web.

We could.

I think, however, we have a different philosophy about whether apps
ought to appear native.  I think native appearance is a good thing;
it makes controls look like what users expect them to be on the
platform they're on, rather than showing users controls designed to
match the platform the page author happens to like and making users
learn recognize multiple UI patterns when one would do.  I think
it's good that pages appear native in different ways on different
browsers -- I see it as a part of what's now called responsive
design.

> If we don't go with a specific set of colors from zcorpan's testing,
> I'd be okay with adding in gray for "border" colors, and categorizing
> the set into one of the three sets for ease of use.

If we went with a fixed set, I'd prefer to use a set from the
default theme of some relatively recent Windows version, given that
the colors defined in CSS actually come from a Windows API.  (See my
earlier messages in this thread about my previous proposals to
improve the set.)

-David

-- 
𝄞   L. David Baron                         http://dbaron.org/   𝄂
𝄢   Mozilla                          https://www.mozilla.org/   𝄂
             Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
             What I was walling in or walling out,
             And to whom I was like to give offense.
               - Robert Frost, Mending Wall (1914)