Re: textured backgrounds

Dave Raggett (dsr@hplb.hpl.hp.com)
Fri, 20 Jan 95 09:51:34 EST

> Is there a sensible middle ground that allows, but does not promote,
> such specification? Then the market place will be able to sort this
> out of its own accord.

Yes, its the ability to cascade style sheets. It works roughly like this:

Browser style defaults
Style sheet linked to document
Style overrides in document head
User's overrides

The browser works from top to bottom to find the style to apply to each
element etc. Preference dialogs allow users to alter the browser defaults
and to say which styles should never be altered by info in documents or
associated style sheets.

To make it easy for authors to create style sheets, and for users to
set preferences, I have been thinking about a simple inheritance model
for style properties: properties associated with the document; with groups
of tags; with particular tags; with particular elements, etc. This allows
you to specify overrides at a meaningful level.

-- Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> tel: +44 272 228046 fax: +44 272 228003
Hewlett Packard Laboratories, Filton Road, Bristol BS12 6QZ, United Kingdom