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Re: Is it time to rely on CSS?
- From: Adam DiCarlo <adam at onshored dot com>
- To: docbook-apps at lists dot oasis-open dot org
- Cc:
- Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 14:20:39 -0600
- Subject: Re: DOCBOOK-APPS: Is it time to rely on CSS?
- Organization: onShore Development, Inc
- References: <5.2.0.9.2.20030121193330.00a97af0@pop3.Nildram.co.uk>
Dave Pawson <dpawson@nildram.co.uk> writes:
> At 12:03 21/01/2003 -0500, Jeff Beal wrote:
> >Actually, external stylesheets have a lower precedence than any internal
> >style rules. The only way authors can override internal style rules is with
> >an !important rule in the external CSS, and I think that is a particularly
> >poorly supported feature of CSS2. This, in my opinion, is another point in
> >favor of leaving CSS out of the HTML as much as possible.
>
> Beg to differ.
> Its because the external is low priority that I like it.
> It means that the end user takes precedence.
> Bill Loughborough has a saying, author proposes, user disposes.
> Basically means that if I (the reader) need to do things to it,
> then you(the author) ain't gonna stop me!
> If I need 24 point yellow on white to access the info, then I can get it.
>
> WAI evidenced the need for that priority.
I think you miss the point. Suppose we alter docbook-xsl to use style
internal in the document. This will have higher priority that the
external stylesheet, which is presumably the style preferences of the
local author. Yes, the user themselves (the 1% that use their own
stylesheets) will override both, but thenyou get an increasing
preference order:
1. author
2. distributor (e.g., Norm)
3. user
What we want is:
1. distributor
2. author
3. user
And Jeff Beal's point is very much to the point. I don't know how to
achieve what we want. I had thought (mistakenly) that external CSS is
higher priority than <HTML><HEAD>... CSS.
To the user that asked for pure semantic markup, I would consider that
a nice idea in principle, but I think there's also an imperative that
the stylesheets ship with as nice and general output as we can get.
--
...Adam Di Carlo..<adam@onshore-devel.com>...<URL:http://www.onshored.com/>