RE: Is the px unit equivalent to user units?

On Tue, 3 Jan 2006, Jon Ferraiolo wrote:
> 
> I think nearly all of the long-standing members of the SVG WG would 
> agree that it would be preferable to drop CSS units from all version of 
> the SVG language (except for defining the intrinsic size of the graphic 
> via width/height on the root svg element) rather than require an 
> abomination such as requiring 'uu' or 'csu' on SVG length values just 
> because CSS purists have a religious issue about unitless values.

I really don't understand the problem. This has nothing to do with 
religion, it's to do with real problems with syntax (e.g. line-height 
handles <number> and <length> very differently).

We have many times suggested a simple solution:

 * Continue to have the "px" unit in text/css be exactly equivalent to 
   unit-free "user units" in SVG.

 * If other units are used, convert them to "px" units (and thus user 
   units) in exactly the same way that CSS already requires.

This is what the specs *already say*. This is scalable. It is completely 
compatible with all existing specs and content.

Then:

 * Remove the requirement that SVG places on CSS parsers to accept 
   <length>s that are just <number>s.

This resolves the one issue that keeps being raised. SVG Tiny 1.2 already 
does this (in fact it removes all requirements on CSS parsers).

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Tuesday, 3 January 2006 18:02:10 UTC