About the CSS 2.2 Specification (original) (raw)

Contents

1.1 CSS 2.2 vs CSS 2

The CSS community has gained significant experience with the CSS2 specification since it became a recommendation in 1998. Errors in the CSS2 specification have subsequently been corrected in the first revised edition [CSS21] in 2011, but new errata were necessary.

While many of the issues will be addressed by the upcoming CSS3 specifications, the current state of affairs hinders the implementation and interoperability of CSS2. The CSS 2.2 specification attempts to address this situation by:

Thus, while it is not the case that a CSS2 style sheet is necessarily forwards-compatible with CSS 2.2, it is the case that a style sheet restricting itself to CSS 2.2 features is more likely to find a compliant user agent today and to preserve forwards compatibility in the future. While breaking forward compatibility is not desirable, we believe the advantages to the revisions in CSS 2.2 are worthwhile.

CSS 2.2 is derived from and is intended to replace CSS 2.1 and CSS2. Some parts of CSS2 are unchanged in CSS 2.2, some parts have been altered, and some parts removed. The removed portions may be used in a future CSS3 specification. Future specs should refer to CSS 2.2 (unless they need features from CSS2 which have been dropped in CSS 2.2, and then they should only reference CSS2 for those features, or preferably reference such feature(s) in the respective CSS3 Module that includes those feature(s)).

1.2 Reading the specification

This section is non-normative.

This specification has been written with two types of readers in mind: CSS authors and CSS implementors. We hope the specification will provide authors with the tools they need to write efficient, attractive, and accessible documents, without overexposing them to CSS's implementation details. Implementors, however, should find all they need to build conforming user agents. The specification begins with a general presentation of CSS and becomes more and more technical and specific towards the end. For quick access to information, a general table of contents, specific tables of contents at the beginning of each section, and an index provide easy navigation, in both the electronic and printed versions.

The specification has been written with two modes of presentation in mind: electronic and printed. Although the two presentations will no doubt be similar, readers will find some differences. For example, links will not work in the printed version (obviously), and page numbers will not appear in the electronic version. In case of a discrepancy, the electronic version is considered the authoritative version of the document.

1.3 How the specification is organized

This section is non-normative.

The specification is organized into the following sections:

Section 2: An introduction to CSS 2.2

The introduction includes a brief tutorial on CSS 2.2 and a discussion of design principles behind CSS 2.2.

Sections 3 - 18: CSS 2.2 reference manual.

The bulk of the reference manual consists of the CSS 2.2 language reference. This reference defines what may go into a CSS 2.2 style sheet (syntax, properties, property values) and how user agents must interpret these style sheets in order to claim conformance.

Appendixes:

Appendixes contain information about aural properties (non-normative), a sample style sheet for HTML 4, changes from CSS 2.1, the grammar of CSS 2.2, a list of normative and informative references, and two indexes: one forproperties and onegeneral index.

1.4 Conventions

1.4.1 Document language elements and attributes

1.4.2 CSS property definitions

Each CSS property definition begins with a summary of key information that resembles the following:

Name: property-name
Value: legal values & syntax
Initial: initial value
Applies to: elements this property applies to
Inherited: whether the property is inherited
Percentages: how percentage values are interpreted
Media: which media groups the property applies to
Computed value: how to compute the computed value

1.4.2.1 Value

This part specifies the set of valid values for the property whose name is 'property-name'. A property value can have one or more components. Component value types are designated in several ways:

  1. keyword values (e.g., auto, disc, etc.)
  2. basic data types, which appear between "<" and ">" (e.g., , , etc.). In the electronic version of the document, each instance of a basic data type links to its definition.
  3. types that have the same range of values as a property bearing the same name (e.g., <'border-width'> <'background-attachment'>, etc.). In this case, the type name is the property name (complete with quotes) between "<" and ">" (e.g., <'border-width'>). Such a type does notinclude the value 'inherit'. In the electronic version of the document, each instance of this type of non-terminal links to the corresponding property definition.
  4. non-terminals that do not share the same name as a property. In this case, the non-terminal name appears between "<" and ">", as in . Notice the distinction between and <'border-width'>; the latter is defined in terms of the former. The definition of a non-terminal is located near its first appearance in the specification. In the electronic version of the document, each instance of this type of value links to the corresponding value definition.

Other words in these definitions are keywords that must appear literally, without quotes (e.g., red). The slash (/) and the comma (,) must also appear literally.

Component values may be arranged into property values as follows:

Juxtaposition is stronger than the double ampersand, the double ampersand is stronger than the double bar, and the double bar is stronger than the bar. Thus, the following lines are equivalent:

a b   |   c ||   d &&   e f

[ a b ] | [ c || [ d && [ e f ]]]

Every type, keyword, or bracketed group may be followed by one of the following modifiers:

The following examples illustrate different value types:

Value: N | NW | NE
Value: [ | thick | thin ]{1,4}
Value: [ , ]*
Value: ? [ / ]?
Value: ||
Value: inset? && [ {2,4} && ? ]

Component values are specified in terms of tokens, as described in Appendix G.2. As the grammar allows spaces between tokens in the components of the expr production, spaces may appear between tokens in property values.

Note: In many cases, spaces will in fact be_required_ between tokens in order to distinguish them from each other. For example, the value '1em2em' would be parsed as a single DIMEN token with the number '1' and the identifier 'em2em', which is an invalid unit. In this case, a space would be required before the '2' to get this parsed as the two lengths '1em' and '2em'.

1.4.2.2 Initial

This part specifies the property's initial value. Please consult the section on the cascade for information about the interaction between style sheet-specified, inherited, and initial property values.

1.4.2.3 Applies to

This part lists the elements to which the property applies. All elements are considered to have all properties, but some properties have no rendering effect on some types of elements. For example, the 'clear' property only affects block-level elements.

1.4.2.4 Inherited

This part indicates whether the value of the property is inherited from an ancestor element. Please consult the section on the cascade for information about the interaction between style sheet-specified, inherited, and initial property values.

1.4.2.5 Percentage values

This part indicates how percentages should be interpreted, if they occur in the value of the property. If "N/A" appears here, it means that the property does not accept percentages in its values.

1.4.2.6 Media groups

This part indicates the media groups to which the property applies. Information about media groups is non-normative.

1.4.2.7 Computed value

This part describes the computed value for the property. See the section on computed valuesfor how this definition is used.

1.4.3 Shorthand properties

Some properties are shorthand properties, meaning that they allow authors to specify the values of several properties with a single property.

For instance, the 'font' property is a shorthand property for setting 'font-style', 'font-variant', 'font-weight', 'font-size', 'line-height', and 'font-family' all at once.

When values are omitted from a shorthand form, each "missing" property is assigned its initial value (see the section on the cascade).

Example(s):

The multiple style rules of this example:

h1 { font-weight: bold; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 14pt; font-family: Helvetica; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; }

may be rewritten with a single shorthand property:

h1 { font: bold 12pt/14pt Helvetica }

In this example, 'font-variant', and 'font-style'take their initial values.

1.4.4 Notes and examples

All examples that illustrate illegal usage are clearly marked as "ILLEGAL EXAMPLE".

HTML examples lacking DOCTYPE declarations are SGML Text Entities conforming to the HTML 4.01 Strict DTD [HTML4]. Other HTML examples conform to the DTDs given in the examples.

All notes are informative only.

Examples and notes are marked within the source HTML for the specification and CSS user agents will render them specially.

1.4.5 Images and long descriptions

Most images in the electronic version of this specification are accompanied by "long descriptions" of what they represent. A link to the long description is denoted by a "[D]" after the image.

Images and long descriptions are informative only.

1.5 Acknowledgments

This section is non-normative.

CSS 2.2 is based on CSS2 and CSS 2.1. See the acknowledgments section of CSS2 and the acknowledgments section of CSS 2.1 for the people that contributed to CSS2 and CSS 2.1.

We would like to thank the following people who, through their input and feedback on the www-style mailing list, have helped us with the creation of this specification:TBD.

In addition, we would like to extend special thanks to TBD.

Many thanks also to the following people for their help with the test suite:TBD … and all the contributors to the CSS1 test suite.