[whatwg] Styling <details>

[Ian Hickson]

(This isn't the final reply on this thread, but I thought I should give a 
heads-up as to the general direction I am expecting us to go in here.)

On Wed, 6 Apr 2011, Lachlan Hunt wrote:
>
>   We've been experimenting with the styling of the details element, 
> trying to figure out the most sensible way style it.  We have tried to 
> find a solution that behaves the way authors expect, provides for easy 
> restyling by authors and avoiding the troubles associated with magic 
> styles that can't be expressed in CSS.
> 
> The rendering section of the spec is currently very inadequate and does 
> not describe accurate styles.  Also, the sample XBL binding given in the 
> XBL 2.0 draft is also inadequate for a number of reasons.

I think the long term solution here is some sort of widget definition 
binding language like XBL. I don't think it makes sense to do it purely in 
CSS. Discolsure widgets have all kinds of subtle behaviours like animation 
during disclosure, hover effects on the triangle, etc. Some systems use a 
"More..." or "Details..." button, some use a triangle, some use +/-.

On the short term, I would recommend using the 'icon' property to allow 
authors to override the icon.

I agree that what the spec says is currently inadequate, but without a 
binding language, I don't think it makes sense to spend time trying to 
improve it, since any improvement would be a stop-gap measure.

The same applies to pretty much all the other form controls.

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