[whatwg] Default (informal) Style Sheet

[Asbjørn Ulsberg]

Since having informal Relax-NG schema fragments in the HTML specification  
has been discussed, I think there might be room to discuss the inclusion  
of default CSS (perhaps even Aural CSS) fragments in the specification as  
well.

While HTML is a semantic markup language, it's not something to ignore  
that it's mostly used for visual rendering of content, often accompanied  
by a CSS document. While I'm a strong believer of separation between  
structure (HTML), presentation (CSS) and functionality (JavaScript), I  
think it could be useful for the HTML specification to -- within limits --  
define how each and every element's default CSS properties and values  
should be like.

This could improve interoperability in the presentation layer, since no  
author starts with a blank canvas when composing his style sheet. The  
author style sheet is always built atop the browser (and even the user's)  
style sheet, which in most cases vary in different degrees on an element  
to element basis. If each element's default style could be specified, the  
variations would be less and we might even discover CSS properties that  
are missing to be able to provide a default style: Such issues should, if  
they occur, be addressed on the CSS mailing list.

I think this could improve both the HTML and CSS specifications  
significantly. Please share your thoughts.

-- 
Asbjørn Ulsberg           -=|=-        asbjorn at ulsberg.no
«He's a loathsome offensive brute, yet I can't look away»