> Yes, there is a proposed format for describing colored text to go with
> your colored background. It is described at
> http://home.netscape.com/assist/net_sites/bg/index.html
> and supported in all Netscape 1.1 browsers.
>
> Dave and the others on this group know it exists, and we have proposed it
> for HTML 3.0, but they would rather require you use a style sheet for this
> which is why they havn't mentioned it to you.
"Style sheets" may sound scary, but the proposed STYLE tag for HTML3
demystifies it. Let's compare Netscape's color attributes with the
Cascading Style Sheet notation:
Netscape 1.1:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Color Control Example</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY TEXT="#F0F0F0" BGCOLOR="#000000">
Cascading style sheet notation:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Color Control Example</TITLE>
<STYLE notation=css>font.color=#FFF; back.color=#000</STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
Not much difference. However, the above example shows just about
all you can do with the BODY attributes, while style sheets will give
the web much more expressive power:
<STYLE notation=css>
# Set some properties for the P element
P: font.family = times
P: font.size = 12pt
P: font.color = #F0F0F0
# Make H1 elements be like Netscape's <FONT SIZE=+2> . </FONT> ...
H1: font.size = 20pt
H1: oversize.font.size += 2
H1: style = bold & big-caps
# blink!
EM: font.style = bold & blink
</STYLE>
Emacs-w3 and Arena implements the fundamentals of this notation which
is still a moving target. We will be working to make it an Internet
draft, and hope other client programmers will help us. A pre-draft is
available from http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/Style/css/draft.html
Cheers,
-h&kon
Hakon W Lie, WWW project CERN, CH-1211 Geneva 23
http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/People/howcome/