[css-color][css-transitions] Interpolation between currentcolor keyword and actual color value

Hi,

When we are implementing -webkit-text-fill-color, we found an issue with
transition due to we always computing "currentcolor" to an actual color
value for interpolation rather than keeping it an computed value. [1]

This raises a question about how "currentcolor" should be interpolated
with an actual color value, given it is a computed value? The spec
doesn't say anything about this.

A simple example code is:
@keyframes t {
  0% {
    color: #f00;
    -webkit-text-fill-color: currentcolor;
  }
  100% {
    color: #0f0;
    -webkit-text-fill-color: #00f;
  }
}

This code works in Firefox Nightly and all other major browser engines.
And there are three different behaviors:
1. WebKit interpolates between #f00 (color at 0%) and #00f
(text-fill-color at 100%), and Gecko currently has the same behavior,
though somehow more buggy.
2. Blink treats currentcolor and #00f as uninterpolatable, so in the
front 50%, it changes between #f00 and #808000, and then it becomes a
solid #00f.
3. Edge treats currentcolor of text-fill-color at 0% as white somehow,
and interpolates that with #00f.

Edge's behavior doesn't make sense at all, and Blink's behavior looks
conforming given the spec doesn't say anything currently, but it seems
WebKit's behavior is the most sensible one in the three.

Furthermore, if currentcolor is a computed value, the most ideally
effect is probably making currentcolor follows the value of color at
every moment, so at 50% of the transition, the used value of
text-fill-color should be ((#f00 + #0f0) / 2 + #00f) / 2, rather than
WebKit's behavior which is (#f00 + #00f) / 2.

However, that could add much complexity to implementation. If there is
no actual usecase, it is probably not worth that effort. Also if we
choose this hard way, it could be a breaking change when switch
currentcolor to a computed value for some cases.

So I propose we can probably say something like, when one value is
currentcolor and the other value is an actual color, treat currentcolor
as its current used value at the given moment in advance.

What do you think?


[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1260543

- Xidorn

Received on Monday, 18 April 2016 10:01:11 UTC