Re: [css-cascade] Naming "value of a declaration", renaming "specified value"

On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 1:21 AM, Simon Sapin <simon.sapin@exyr.org> wrote:
> Le 24/06/2013 22:16, Tab Atkins Jr. a écrit :]
>> The term "specified value" has always been confusing, because it does
>> *not* refer to the value the author specified.  Instead, it's always
>> referred to the value that starts the standard value-computation
>> chain, at the point where a given element has a value for every
>> property.
>>
>> Ironically, we don't actually *have* a term for the value the author
>> actually specified in the stylesheet, or the close-enough concept of
>> what CSSStyleDeclaration returns.
>>
>> Private conversation with dbaron (in #css) led to the following
>> suggestions:
>>
>> 1. Use "declared value" for the value of a declaration; that is, what
>> is returned when you query CSSStyleDeclaration.  This is not
>> associated with any particular element, and may not have a value for
>> every property.
>>
>> 2. Drop the term "specified value", and slightly modify Cascade so
>> that "cascaded value" fills the role.  This just requires us to
>> slightly change the verbiage around how we handle the global keywords;
>> currently, the "cascaded value" may be empty or resolve to one of the
>> global keywords.  We'd change it so that as part of the computation of
>> the cascaded value, we guarantee that we fill in a value, and resolve
>> away the global keywords.  (Our current use of "cascaded value" in the
>> spec is unobservable from the outside, and we can just lean on the
>> term "result of the cascade" to represent the value that might be
>> empty or might be a global keyword.)
>>
>> Thoughts?
>
>
> This sounds good, but when doing the edits please add a note near the
> definitions that explains the old terms, for people reading CSS 2.1 or
> mailing list archives.

Absolutely.

> By the we, should we errata 2.1 for such editorial but fundamental changes?

Yes.

~TJ

Received on Tuesday, 25 June 2013 17:32:09 UTC