RE: Styling HTML placeholder attribute


[Tab Atkins Jr.:]
> 
> I'm arguing against Arron and Sylvain's assertions that we should decide,
> from a theoretical perspective, whether to address placeholder styling
> with a pseudoclass or pseudo-element, and then after making that decision,
> decide on the styling.

This a straw man. This whole part of the discussion started with your claim
that a pseudo-element is 'definitely better' as opacity would otherwise
be awkward as a default style. We don't believe this is a sufficient reason 
to require all browsers to add a pseudo-element, never mind requiring authors to
deal with one. Especially when it doesn't address other interesting scenarios
and user requests. 

We also believe that if opacity requires extra pseudo-elements to work right 
then *maybe* opacity has a problem that needs fixing. Is that 'theoretical'?
Really?

There is nothing 'theoretical' about any of this. I have spent an entire 
release working on control styling and the feedback thereof. Believe me, 
it's quite real. And that experience motivates a strong desire to think 
about the use-case from a more general perspective  than 'Opacity! 
Opacity! But what about opacity? We must have opacity!'. But somehow, 
the latter is the approach focused on users' concerns and the former
is 'architecture astronautics'. 

Clearly, this won't get anywhere. Oh well.

Received on Thursday, 24 January 2013 20:32:04 UTC