[whatwg] Default (informal) Style Sheet

[Sander Tekelenburg]

At 12:52 +0200 UTC, on 2007-04-02, Asbjørn Ulsberg wrote:

> On Mon, 02 Apr 2007 09:59:50 +0200, Sander Tekelenburg <st at isoc.nl> wrote:

[display: block and inline]

>> Defining preseantation up to *that* level is no problem IMO.
>
> Great! Then let's.
>
>> The current (HTML 4) spec already does so, and in fact this is no
>> more than a translation of HTML's distinction between block and inline
>> level elements to CSS terminology.
>
> That translation already leads to a plethora of different results,
> CSS-wise. Is the whitespace around a <p> margin or padding? What is the
> default style of <li> elements? Do they have outside or inside alignment?
> Padding or margin or both? What is their line-height?

I can't follow your logic. Those different results do not stem from a
translation of block and inline level elements to CSS terminology

[...]

>> I didn't get the impression from the OP though that the aim was to
>> restrict specifying of presentational defaults to this level.
>
> That's up to us to dicsuss. What level of presentation default we choose
> to specify is not yet specified. ;-)

Maybe it would be good then if you'd start by suggesting some specific
default styles. That would help us understand exactly what we're talking
about. FWIW, my current view is that HTML should not define default margins,
paddings, fonts/sizes, colours, etc.

> Having some defaults is either way
> better than having none, imho.

Why?

>> (The OP said "informal" and "within limits", but didn't define that.)
>
> I didn't define it for a reason.

I thought so :) I'm inviting you to define those ;) It would help make more
clear what exactly we're discussing.

>> As I asked before: how does an author provided 'CSS zapper' not do that?
>
> Should the HTML or CSS specification then encourage HTML and CSS authors
> to use such a "zapper" to get expected visual results across browsers?

That would get my vote, yes. (For CSS authors. HTML has nothing to do with
presentation.)

>> How in fact does requiring default presentations remove the need for
>> authors to provide 'CSS zappers'?
>
> You can't require anything with informal (non-normative) language. It's
> just the normative part of the specification that can be required and
> enforced. I proposed it as "informal fragments" for a reason, and even if
> the browser vendors aren't required to implement it

Even if default presentations would be shoulds, the signal to Web authors
would still be "you can rely on your site to look like x".


-- 
Sander Tekelenburg
The Web Repair Initiative: <http://webrepair.org/>