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Chris Haynes | 3 Jun 2002 01:27
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Re: X11 Colors (was Last call comments on CSS3 module: color)


May I offer some thoughts as someone who designs interactive web
services, and knows enough about color to know that he doesn't
understand enough?

I initially got quite excited by suggestions that we might define
colors using expressions such as:

    border: thin dotted light dull shimmering cyan-blue;
    background: light vivid yellow-green;
    color: grimy rich magenta;

but then I thought about how I actually use color.

For the static description of color I'm quite content to use hex RGB
values.
I use a color swatch which gives me the RGB values, and the additional
value of having words to describe a color is mimimal for me, in fact
it is an extra step which I never take.

All th color selection tools I have seen generated RGB values, so no
value there.

What would be useful for me would be the color equivalent of

        font-size: larger;

which would modify a color defined elsewhere (maybe even in a style
sheet I do not have access to).
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Andy | 3 Jun 2002 06:53
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Re: X11 Colors (was Last call comments on CSS3 module: color)


Chris Lilley wrote:

> It remains to be shown, though, that any color naming syntax has any
> benefit over entity references which can be used to assign any desired
> color to any desired keyword, under user control, in any language,
> with 100% interoperability and no changes to the specification.

You mean SGML/XML entity references?

ie, something like:

&AndysFunkyBlue;

along with an appropriate definition?

I didn't think those would work in .css files. I'd be happy to hear that
I'm wrong!

Can you provide a working example?

--

-- 
AndyT (lordpixel - the cat who walks through walls)
A little bigger on the inside

I think we finally found the killer app for Flash: animated stick men
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Doug Schepers | 3 Jun 2002 10:08

RE: X11 Colors (was Last call comments on CSS3 module: color)


I respectfully disagree with the suggestion to do away with named colors.
While one may become  accustomed to using number values when creating Web
content, it is neither intuitive nor easy to maintain. I think that we
should not throw out the consideration that humans (that's us) have to read
and write this code, as well as machines. When refactoring a a style sheet,
seeing at a glance the existing colors is vastly preferable to looking them
up on a chart. Not all content creators are technical.

From what I have read of CNS (Chris Lilley's proposal), a formalized syntax
with which to describe a color sounds both very workable (there are
relatively few terms to learn, but which allow a wide permutation of colors)
and desirable (it makes it easier to code and maintain).

While I'm a native English speaker, I understand the need for a more
international consideration. Having a system that requires little initial
investment to learn certainly would address that --in contrast to the
laundrylist of obscure color names that X-11 boasts (such as the beloved and
reviled "cornflowerblue" ;).

I can understand why people may not like X-11 (dark gray is lighter than
gray?!), but what does having color names hurt?

My two cents-
-Doug

Chris Haynes wrote:
>
> May I offer some thoughts as someone who designs interactive web
> services, and knows enough about color to know that he doesn't
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Chris Lilley | 3 Jun 2002 13:36
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Re: X11 Colors (was Last call comments on CSS3 module: color)


On Monday, June 3, 2002, 6:53:44 AM, Andy wrote:

A> Chris Lilley wrote:

>> It remains to be shown, though, that any color naming syntax has any
>> benefit over entity references which can be used to assign any desired
>> color to any desired keyword, under user control, in any language,
>> with 100% interoperability and no changes to the specification.

A> You mean SGML/XML entity references?

Yes. Well, XML ones - there is only one SGML+CSS implementation that I
am aware of.

A> ie, something like:

A> &AndysFunkyBlue;

A> along with an appropriate definition?

Yes.

A> I didn't think those would work in .css files. I'd be happy to hear that
A> I'm wrong!

It will only work in internal files, that is correct, unless CSS gets an XML syntax.

A> Can you provide a working example?
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Chris Lilley | 3 Jun 2002 13:49
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Fwd: Re: X11 Colors (was Last call comments on CSS3 module: color)

This is a forwarded message
From: Tobias Reif <tobiasreif <at> pinkjuice.com>
To: www-svg <at> w3.org
Date: Thursday, May 30, 2002, 9:14:39 PM
Subject: X11 Colors (was Last call comments on CSS3 module: color)

===8<==============Original message text===============

Chris Lilley wrote:

>>>It remains to be shown, though, that any color naming syntax has any
>>>benefit over entity references

All the benefits I listed in my post [1], without requiring the designer 
to setup such a system himself.

> TR> You mean the designer would map his own keywords to RGB values via XML entities?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> TR> If that's what you mean, I really don't like it.
> TR> I want to have the flexibility of RGB (which is there right now), plus 
> TR> the convenience and expressiveness of nice human language descriptions 
> TR> (sentences or keywords); the latter mechanism should be convenient, and 
> TR> not require me to declare entities first.
> 
> Why is that inconvenient?

Because people have to declare all the entities before using them. Since 
this involves fiddling with RGB triplets, or color pickers, I can't see
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Bert Bos | 3 Jun 2002 21:51
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Re: Hanging indent


The CSS working group talked about hanging indents a little, but is
not convinced there is a strong enough case for adding a new property
or a new type of value.

1) People may indeed overlook the fact that 'text-indent' can be
negative and some prople may have trouble imagining negative values at
all, but most of that problem can be solved by giving an example in
the spec and making sure that there are sufficient examples elsewhere.

The example would go something like this:

    HANGING INDENTATION

    To "outdent" the first line, add the desired indentation to the
    'padding-left' property and then use the 'text-indent' property to
    negate the indentation for the first line:

        p {padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em}

2) Fantasai pointed out the problem that 'text-indent' inherits but
'padding' does not and that you can therefore end up with some nested
block that you didn't foresee and therefore didn't put a padding on.
This can indeed not be fully solved with the current properties, but
in practice it seems to be very rare.

If you notice an unwanted inheritance effect, you can often suppress
it with:

    * {text-indent: 0}
(Continue reading)

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Andy | 4 Jun 2002 04:57
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Re: X11 Colors (was Last call comments on CSS3 module: color)


Chris Lilley wrote:
> 
> A> I didn't think those would work in .css files. I'd be happy to hear that
> A> I'm wrong!
> 
> It will only work in internal files, that is correct, unless CSS gets an XML syntax.
> 
> A> Can you provide a working example?
> 
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
> <!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.0//EN"
> "http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/DTD/svg10.dtd" [
> <!ENTITY AndysFunkyBlue '#2356CF'>
> ]>
> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="100%" height="100%"
> viewBox="0 0 400 300">
>   <desc>
>     Demonstration of entity references for arbitrary named colors
>   </desc>
>   <style type="text/css">
>   circle { fill: #393; stroke: #C66; stroke-width: 8}
>   #Andy > circle  { fill: &AndysFunkyBlue; }
>   </style>
>   <circle r="200" cx="200" cy="150"/>
>   <g id="Andy">
>     <circle r="100" cx="200" cy="150">
>     <desc>I am whatever color the entity tells me to be</desc>
>     </circle>
>   </g>
(Continue reading)

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fantasai | 4 Jun 2002 07:21

Re: X11 Colors (was Last call comments on CSS3 module: color)


Tantek Çelik wrote:
> 
...
> Agreed.  We should not redefine "orange" for example.
...
> Here is a concrete proposal:
> 
> Deprecate the X11 color names in CSS3 Color and SVG 1.1.*
> Keep the HTML4 color names.
> Keep the CSS2 system colors.**

Sounds like a good plan.

> Post your proposal on a website and send the URL to www-style NOW so that
> we can discuss it in the working group(s) and possibly include it in the
> next version of CSS3 color.

No color name proposals from me. :) I think CNS looks very appropriate,
although I would follow Johnny Axelsson's suggestion and "combine modifier
and adjective" [1] for lightness.

I have, however, a question for Chris...

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/1996Apr/0029.html
 |  > 1.   It is really simpler to specify hue, saturation and lightness
 |  >      than to specify RGB values.
 | 
 | Yes. Especially if lightness really does correspond to how light
 | something appears - a desirable property, I'm sure you will agree. Try
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fantasai | 4 Jun 2002 07:24

Re: Hanging indent


Bert Bos wrote:
> 
> The CSS working group talked about hanging indents a little, but is
> not convinced there is a strong enough case for adding a new property
> or a new type of value.
...
> 2) Fantasai pointed out the problem that 'text-indent' inherits but
> 'padding' does not and that you can therefore end up with some nested
> block that you didn't foresee and therefore didn't put a padding on.
> This can indeed not be fully solved with the current properties, but
> in practice it seems to be very rare.
> 
> If you notice an unwanted inheritance effect, you can often suppress
> it with:
> 
>     * {text-indent: 0}

You did not understand my example. Look at it again, and assume I
want a hanging indent--one that inherits, just like a regular indent.
Look at the rules--carefully, and separately. What does each one
express, and why does the combination create a problem?

(I can create more complicated examples, if you want.)

> 3) An extra property, say 'text-outdent' or 'text-hang', that would
> complement 'text-indent' by adding an indent to all lines except the
> first, would be a relatively easy to understand solution. But it would
> still be an extra property to deal with.
(Continue reading)

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Coises | 4 Jun 2002 09:42

Re: Hanging indent


[Mon, 3 Jun 2002 21:51:00 +0200] Bert Bos:
>6) Both solutions, a new property and a new value for 'text-indent',
>would also have a problem with backwards compatibility, because CSS2
>implementations would not show any effect at all, neither an indent
>nor an outdent.
>
>In short, the working group would like to see more convincing
>examples, before trying to add anything to CSS3.

A much simpler solution --- in my humble opinion --- would be to define
negative text-indent values as setting the first line of a block flush
with the content edge and indenting the following lines by the appropriate
amount.  The margin/border/padding values then continue to mean
(in an intuitive sense) what they mean in any other context.

This does have the serious disadvantage of being incompatible with CSS2;
I submit that in all other respects, it makes far more sense than saying
that negative values cause the text to move out of the content area.

Consider, for example: what happens with the CSS2 method of creating
hanging indents should the overflow property be other than visible?
--

-- 
Randall Joseph Fellmy aka Randy <at> Coises.com
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