Re: textured backgrounds

Paul Grosso (pbg@texcel.no)
Sun, 22 Jan 95 09:51:32 EST

> From: "Rob Raisch" <raisch@internet.com>
>
> I would like to make a strong request for the ability of the
> publisher to specify that the stylesheet they provide should
> not/must not be overridden in the browser.

> From: Peter Flynn <pflynn%curia.ucc.ie@arbortext.com>
>
> > From: "Marc Salomon" <marc@library.ucsf.edu>
> > Dave Raggett <dsr@hplb.hpl.hp.com> writes:
> > |Yes,its the ability to cascade style sheets. It works roughly like
> > this:
> > 3| Browser style defaults
> > 2| Style sheet linked to document
> > 1| Style overrides in document head
> > 0| User's overrides
> >
> > I would hope that for (2) an author would be able to specify a
> > document-specific stylesheet that could contain a reference to an
> > institution-specific stylesheet(s).
>
> It's (0) that makes some publishers get that sinking feeling. The fact
> that J Random User can turn their carefully-crafted pages into bird's
> nest soup.
>
> Right. But the problem is, whose probity can we trust?

The reader is always in control--bottom line is they can just not
read what the author/publisher produced.

But what if the visually impaired reader is not allowed to enlarge the
text so that they are able to read it? Then the author's "control"
becomes inappropriate. The reader's choice becomes *only* to not read
it, even if they want to read it.

It's not a question of trusting anyone's probity. The reader should *have
the ability* to override style as well as *the ability* to read it the way
the author/publisher intended it.

paul

Paul Grosso
VP Research Chief Technical Officer
ArborText, Inc. SGML Open

Email: paul@arbortext.com
or pbg@texcel.no