[whatwg] Stylesheet Links (was: Re: Menus, fallback, and backwards compatibility: ideas wanted)

[Ian Hickson]

On Tue, 20 Dec 2005, Lachlan Hunt wrote:
>
> Ian Hickson wrote:
> > On Thu, 15 Dec 2005, Lachlan Hunt wrote:
> > 
> > (Though <link rel="stylesheet"> could be replaced by <style src=""> --
> > already supported by browsers
> 
> I wasn't aware of that being implemented at all, though it would make 
> sense to do it just like <script src="">.  However, the only browser I 
> could find that has implemented it is IE5/Mac, which is obsolete anyway.  
> IE6/Win, Opera, Firefox, Camino, Safari, iCab and OmniWeb don't support 
> it.

Indeed, apologies. I was mistaken.


> > or obsoleted only for XHTML, in favour of <?xml-stylesheet>, as far as 
> > stylesheets go.)
> 
> Are there any XHTML UAs that don't support that?  If not, I think that 
> would be acceptable.

To my knowledge, there are not. But we already established that my 
knowledge is limited, qv the <style src> thing. ;-)


> > > <style>@import;</style> could have been an acceptable alternative to link
> > > if IE didn't have annoying bugs with it.
> > 
> > It's not like IE doesn't have bugs with <link rel="stylesheet">...
> 
> I'm quite sure it does, though I'm not aware of any.  But its bugs and 
> incomplete support for @import seem worse.  For example, IE doesn't 
> support media queries on @import, or even apply @media print{} 
> stylesheets linked using @import, but does with link.  At least with 
> <link>, I get relatively predictable behaviour.

Not supporting something isn't a bug.

But in any case, the biggest reason not to drop <link rel="stylesheet"> 
would be the millions of existing instances of its use. We'll have to keep 
<link>, it seems.

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