Re: [css-cascade-4][css3-ui] naming collision: the "default" value

As Tab pointed out 'ua-default' isn't strictly correct as it could be the
user origin.

How about something similar to: 'origin-default'

This relates to the current origin, setting it to it's origins default. I
considered 'parent-origin-default' but it is way too long.

Is there any consensus on how this behavior will relate to shadow DOM as
there was some talk around an origin just for the shadow default?

On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 12:31 PM Daniel Tan <lists@novalistic.com> wrote:

> On 4/23/2015 4:03 PM, Simon Pieters wrote:
> > On Thu, 23 Apr 2015 08:33:55 +0200, Daniel Tan <lists@novalistic.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> On 4/23/2015 10:23 AM, Brad Kemper wrote:
> >>>
> >>> 'ua-default' seems too jargony to me. I suspect there is a huge
> >>> percentage of authors writing CSS that don't know what 'ua' stands
> >>> for, or even what a "user agent" is.
> >>>
> >>
> >> Unfortunately (?!) I can't claim to be one of those authors. The term
> >> "ua-default" makes perfect sense to me. Maybe we could take this
> >> opportunity to educate authors on the terminology used in the
> >> specifications?
> >
> > People who are subscribed to www-style are not representative. We all
> > know what "ua" and "user agent" means, but maybe many CSS authors do
> > not. To those who don't, ua-default is like xy-default. I don't think
> > that is a problem, though. If they want to know what it means, they can
> > look it up. If they don't care, that's also fine, they can still use it
> > and know what it does without knowing what "ua" means.
> >
> > Case study: "px" is opaque to many CSS authors. Not everyone knows it
> > expands to "pixel". Fewer still know that expands to "picture element".
> > Not everyone knows CSS "px" is a visual angle rather than a device
> > pixel. But everyone uses "px" and are happy with their understanding of
> > what it does. That it is jargony or that their understanding is not
> > technically accurate is not a problem in practice.
> >
>
> That's an interesting point. I had incorrectly assumed that most authors
> know that "px" means "pixel", which, oversimplified, means a dot on the
> screen - but it's more likely that they simply associate "px" directly
> with some sort of on-screen measurement and just go with it. WYSIWYG,
> and so on.
>
> > We have "user agent" or "ua" as part of the Web platform in various
> > places already: the User-Agent header, navigator.userAgent,
> > X-UA-Compatible, robots.txt.
> >
> > Also, "ua" is the term that the developers of http://cssuseragent.org/
> > chose to expose to CSS authors.
> >
> >> The next best alternative would be "browser-default", but the word
> >> "browser" alone takes up just as many bytes as "default". Ew.
> >
> > This also has a similar semantic problem that not all CSS user agents
> > are browsers. Personally I don't mind that, but I can't think of an
> > existing precedent of using the word "browser" in a Web-exposed feature.
> >
>
> Absolutely. Many authors don't realize that there are other kinds of CSS
> user agents besides browsers. I know it slipped my mind at the time I
> wrote my previous message.
>
> All said, +1 too for ua-default or default-value.
>
> --
> Daniel Tan
> NOVALISTIC
> <http://NOVALISTIC.com>
>
>