The Future of Style

CSS3 . Info Level 3 features in the wild

by James Hopkins, 03 July 2008 01:52 PM

The beauty about working on a site that is specifically targeted for one the most popular mobile devices around (aka the iPhone) is that the vendor with the least CSS support (*cough* IE *cough*) doesn’t exist on it (purely because of its inadequate CSS support in this case).

Depending on the browser matrix you have to work with and the platforms you’re coding for, utilizing Level 3 (and some Level 2.1 in IE’s case) selectors simply isn’t realistic, although properties on the other hand can be used to progressively enhance an elements appearance in this particular context.

But what if a site was created to serve one specific handheld device in which Safari (along with its sufficient CSS3 support) was the default browser? Well, this is what Facebook has done with it’s iPhone-specifc UI. By peaking into their stylesheet you’ll notice that they’re implementing a number of Level 3 selectors, properties and property value additions. They include the:-

• User-select property (Webkit prefix)
• Negation Pseudo-class Selector
• RGBA color values (in conjunction with ‘background-color’ and ‘text-shadow’ properties
• Text Overflow property
• Box-sizing property (including Mozilla and Webkit prefixes)
• Border-image property (Webkit prefix)
• Text-shadow property
• Border-radius property
• Multiple Backgrounds
• Opacity

For comedy value, try viewing the site in IE.

Having this sort of free reign on selectors and properties is an interface developers dream in this day and age, and hopefully in a couple of years we’ll be able to structure a stylesheet with some similarly advanced features.

CSS Working Group Blog Resolutions 2008-07-02

by fantasai, 02 July 2008 08:22 PM

• Discussed charter and module table
• Media Queries has outstanding comments
• CSSWG to advocate separation of content and style and not using generated content for actual document content via blog article and note in CSS2.1.
• Status update on CSS Variables and Selectors
• Discussed some CSS2.1 issues, no conclusion yet

CSS3 . Info Opera Dragonfly alpha 2 RC now available

by David Storey, 26 June 2008 04:20 PM

This is just a quick note, to inform CSS3.info readers that the release candidate for Opera Dragonfly alpha 2 has just been released. Check out the Opera Dragonfly web site for download instructions, and the Opera Dragonfly Blog for more information on the release. There will be a short RC phase then alpha 2 will be uploaded to the main Opera Dragonfly URL that is built into Opera 9.5, and existing alpha 1 users will be upgraded automatically. The web site will also be updated to highlight the new features.

One feature of note for readers of this blog is the auto-complete feature for CSS properties and values in the Styles sidebar. Using the up and down arrows will cycle through the valid properties that Opera supports. This (in theory) will give a good indication of all the CSS3 properties that Opera 9.5 (and subsequent versions) has implemented. As CSS editing is live and immediate, it is a great way to test new features and play with the values.

Please give feedback on Opera Dragonfly alpha 2 using the usual channels.

CSS Working Group Blog Resolutions 2008-06-25

by fantasai, 25 June 2008 11:04 PM

Resolved

• Use the CSSWG wiki to compile a table with information about each spec we are working on, including:
  • brief description
  • status of the document (including anticipated next state)
  • status of implementations (including expected implementations)
  • status of test suite (including expectations)
  • issues/blocking items
  • reasons why we want this, why it's important
  • link to the spec
• Create very short list of deliverables for the charter and put all other items in a normative scope section. Items in the scope section can be worked on, but not advanced through the REC track unless the charter is amended to list them as a deliverable.

Full minutes

CSS3 . Info Latest Webkit nightlies now support CSS Variables

by James Hopkins, 23 June 2008 08:58 PM

Dave Hyatt informs us that the latest Webkit nightlies now support an experimental implementation of CSS Variables.

The news comes only days after Daniel announced on his blog that he and Dave were in the process of finalizing a new version of the spec based on both feedback from readers and the Webkit implementation.

Nightlies can be downloaded from here and they’ve also provided a fair few test cases.

CSS Working Group Blog Resolutions 2008-06-11

by fantasai, 16 June 2008 07:53 PM

• Resolved: Add note about CSSWG members list being public to charter, submit to W3C management.

• Resolved: Publish CSS Color Level 3 Last Call Working Draft asap after Bert's review; set last call period for six weeks; ask SVG and XSL working groups for comments.

• Resolved: Publish flexbox module as a First Public Working Draft.

• Resolved: Peter's draft for disclaimer for IRC logs accepted with s/working communication/informal working communication/.

• Resolved: Proposal accepted for CSS2.1 Issue 8.

• Resolved: Proposal accepted for CSS2.1 Issue 6.

• Resolved: Proposal accepted for CSS2.1 Issue 24.

• Resolved: Proposal accepted for CSS2.1 Issue 39.

• Resolved: Accept proposed Media Queries changes unless comments sent by next telecon.

Full minutes.

CSS3 . Info Firefox developers accelerate CSS implementation

by Peter Gasston, 15 June 2008 01:23 PM

Firefox 3 isn’t quite out yet, but already there are some exciting plans for CSS implementation in future versions.

FF3.1 should see all the selectors (test them here), @media queries, text-shadow, font-stretch, and downloadable web fonts with @font-face; FF4 should add calc() and attr() values, along with the Animation and Transitions modules proposed by the Webkit team.

You can see a list of other planned implementations on the Mozilla Wiki.

CSS3 . Info Opera 9.5 launches with lots of CSS improvements

by Peter Gasston, 12 June 2008 09:10 AM

Opera have released version 9.5 of their browser today, and the good news for our readers (and web users in general) is that there are lots of CSS 3 features implemented. This article on dev.opera.com goes into more detail, but major improvements include:

• @media queries
• text-shadow
• -o-background-size
• opacity
• hsl colours
• overflow-x & overflow-y
• all css selectors
• form pseudo-classes

Download a copy today and take a look at some of the examples on our Preview pages. I’ve just noticed that the background-size example doesn’t work, but that seems to be our implementation at fault, not theirs.

CSS Working Group Blog Resolutions 2008-06-04

by fantasai, 09 June 2008 09:09 PM

Resolved

• No multiple borders feature in CSS Backgrounds and Borders Level 3.
• No percentage border-width feature in CSS Backgrounds and Borders Level 3.
• Bert and fantasai to continue work on defining inner shaodws for CSS Backgrounds and Borders Level 3.
• Include syntax for positioning background images from corners other than the top left in next CSS Backgrounds and Borders Level 3 draft, ask for feedback on whether that syntax should be kept, changed, or dropped.
• Approved publication of next CSS Template Layout Level 3 (formerly Advanced Layout) as Working Draft.
• David Baron's changes to CSS Color Level 3 approved.
• CSS Color Level 3 to be published as Last Call Working Draft.

Other notes

• Discussed charter. Module list to be drafted by Peter Linsss. Chairs feel Selectors Level 4 would distract from other work and should not make the cut.
• Discussed test suite review process. WG wants to make a list of active, approved reviewers and to encourage everyone to help review testcases. fantasai will work on putting together a system for commenting on testcases to make it easier for people to get involved.

Full minutes. Discuss on www-style.

CSS3 . Info Firefox 3.1 is the latest to pass our selectors test

by Peter Gasston, 04 June 2008 10:25 PM

I’ve just put a pre-Alpha build of Firefox 3.1 through its paces, and can confirm (following David Baron’s announcement) that it gets a score of 578/578 in our CSS3 Selectors Test, which means not only support for the new selectors, but some bugs fixed in existing ones. To put that score in perspective, Firefox 3 scores only 357/578.

There is an almost perfect score on Daniel Glazman’s Selectors Test too, with only one discrepancy showing up.

So Safari, Opera and now Firefox all pass the test; of the major browsers, that only leaves one Inevitable Exception…

Those brave enough to try pre-Alpha can download builds from Mozilla’s FTP server. The usual warnings and disclaimers apply!

CSS3 . Info Slow times for CSS 3 news

by Peter Gasston, 03 June 2008 10:17 PM

News about developments in CSS 3 is hard to come by at the moment, so please forgive the slow rate of updates on the site in the last month. I attended the @media conference here in London last week and news on progress in CSS was noticeable by its absence, when even HTML 5 had its own session.

I see that Bert Bos has delivered a couple of presentations on the Template (formerly ‘Advanced’) Layout Module, but I can’t find slides of them anywhere. If anyone attended the talks and can send us copies, do please get in touch.

Other than that, the only news is that the CSS WG have released their list of expected module deliverables; the modules listed in the 2007 snapshot along with Media Queries look set to be Recommendations shortly, with many others to take on Candidate Recommendation status.

And that’s it. Sorry there isn’t more, or that it isn’t more exciting. I’m aiming to put together a load of new examples soon, so that should be more interesting!

Update: As mentioned in a comment below, no sooner do I say there’s not much going on than David Baron announces that the remaining CSS3 selectors have been implemented in a build of Mozilla (which will probably be seen in Firefox 3.1), and Media Queries are set to follow. That’s good news.

CSS Working Group Blog Notes and Resolutions 2008-05-28

by fantasai, 02 June 2008 11:47 PM

• Discussed individual modules in charter and what the deliverables are. Advocates expressed their expectations:

  Expected RECs

  • CSS Namespaces
  • Selectors
  • Color
  • Media Queries

  Expected CRs

  • MultiCol
  • Paged Media
  • Backgrounds and Borders
  • Ruby
  • GCPM
  • Fonts
  • Template Layout
  • Marquee
  • Variables
  • Box Model
  • Values and Units
  • Generated Content
  • Animations and Transitions
  • Transforms
  • CSSOM View

  Expected WDs

  • Text
  • Text Layout
  • Extended Box Model
  • Flexbox
  • Grid Positioning
  • Lists
  • Tables

  WG wants to expect REC for CSS2.1, fantasai thinks it's possible but not likely.
• Resolved: Accepted proposed wording for CR Exit Criteria

Full minutes

CSS Working Group Blog Charter Discussions 2008-05-21

by fantasai, 24 May 2008 01:36 AM

Almost the entire 2008-05-21 meeting was a discussion of the module list that is not yet drafted for the charter. Several conflicting arguments were brought up. Here's an unordered summary of points in the discussion.

• The criteria agreed upon for adding modules to the charter is significant implementation interest from at least two implementors and an advocate within the working group to drive spec editing.
• An item must be in scope for the charter for us to work on it, because companies want to be aware of any potential patent commitments they must make by participating.
• In the past the CSSWG has had a long list of modules in scope for the charter. Few of these make significant progress during the charter period.
• W3C Management is unhappy that the CSSWG hasn't been completing all the work in its charter.
• Adobe is particularly uncomfortable with keeping all the modules in the charter list right now and threatened to resign if they were all kept. Patent commitments were a cited concern. Another was that the WG can't finish everything on the proposed list in the 2-year charter period... (no explanation why this is itself a problem for Adobe outside the patent policy concern).
• Bert points out that patent policy has several points of entry and exit, one of which is the charter, another of which is the publication of a an official public Working Draft.
• The CSSWG charter is very precise about what is in scope. The scope can be argued to be broad by the number of modules, but it is not in any way ambiguous because all items proposed for the charter have a working draft already.
• HP's representatives felt that items should not be cut from the charter in order to make the WG focus on high-priority items: that's the job the chairs should be doing. The high-priority items should be explicitly identified as what the WG plans to deliver, and the medium priority items should be in scope but explicitly listed as to be worked on as time and resources allow.
• Things can be added to the charter by an amendment process. Adobe was advocating that only high-priority items be in the charter and others added as necessary via amendment.
• Mozilla expressed concern that if lower-priority items are forced out of the charter they will be worked on elsewhere (e.g. in the WHATWG).
• Apple wants to develop their proposed extensions through standardization discussions rather than by forging ahead on their own.
• Molly expressed concern that items that don't make the charter won't appear to the public to be on the WG's radar. It was pointed out that the website has and will continue to have an exhaustive list.

The main conflict here seems to be whether

• items should be in scope of the charter if there is reasonable expectation of work being done on them, and charter amendments should be used only in unexpected circumstances
• or items should be in scope of the charter only if there is a firm commitment to work on them at this time, and the amendment process should be used more commonly to add things in as they gain priority.

The conclusion of the discussions was that the chairs should draft the module list section of the charter. Currently only the unedited summary of implementor feedback has been written.

Opera was not represented in these discussions. They also have not sent in any comments previously.

Full Minutes

CSS Working Group Blog Resolutions 2008-05-14, 2008-05-21

by fantasai, 24 May 2008 01:05 AM

• Reminder to Members to review charter
• fantasai posted proposed resolutions for most Backgrounds and Borders issues. Another issue was posted later. Some issues still need input, all need review.
• There's some opposition to suggestion to change 'background-origin' to 'background-box'.
• Percentage border widths will most likely be dropped due to complications in shrink-wrap and table situations and lack of use cases.
• Still waiting on Opera for module priority feedback for Charter.
• Resolved that Yahoo's rep can attend the next F2F as an observer.

CSS Working Group Blog CSS Snapshot 2007 and CSS Namespaces

by fantasai, 23 May 2008 09:47 PM

The W3C published a Last Call Working Draft of the CSS Snapshot 2007. If you are following the development of CSS and you haven't read it yet, I recommend doing so. Its goal is to put the various specs in context and create a coherent picture of the current state of CSS. The deadline for comments is June 9th.

The W3C has also published a Candidate Recommendation of the CSS Namespaces module. This module has been implemented for years based on a 1999 draft spec, so the module is just starting to catch up with the times. The two major changes that implementors should be aware of are: prefixes are explicitly case-sensitive, in line with our resolution of CSS2.1's case-sensitivity issue; and handling of empty-string namespaces has been clarified.

CSS3 . Info A couple of quick updates

by Peter Gasston, 14 May 2008 09:02 AM

Over at Design Shack they’re four posts into the five-post Introduction to CSS3, which covers Borders, Text Effects, the User Interface and (coming soon) Multiple Columns. A nice intro to the subject if our own examples are too complicated for you :p

The new owners of the Fonts and Web Fonts modules, Jason Cranford Teague and John Daggett, say that only about 20% of the Web Fonts module is required for CSS (it is currently part of the SVG charter), and propose simplifying it before merging with the Fonts module. They hope to have a working draft of the new spec in August.

CSS Working Group Blog Resolutions 2008-05-07

by fantasai, 13 May 2008 08:17 PM

Resolved

• CSS 2007 Snapshot will be published as Last Call
• Description of www-style to be updated so that the first paragraph reads:

  This mailing list is for technical discussion on Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and its specifications. All posts to this list must be about the development of the CSS specification itself. This list is also the preferred place for discussing working drafts that are published by W3C's CSS Working Group.

Other topics

• Briefly discussed charter. Still waiting for feedback from Opera.
• Discussed CSS3 Fonts. John Daggett and Jason Cranford Teague want to merge the CSS3 Web Fonts spec and the CSS3 Fonts spec because the CSS3 Fonts spec needs to modify the font selection algorithm in WebFonts. Also, it seems only about 20% of the functionality in WebFonts is needed in CSS, so that part of the spec won't be so long once trimmed. This would mean putting Web Fonts as part of the CSS Charter; currently it is only in SVG's charter. John and Jason are having trouble contacting Chris Lilley.
• Discussed logo competition. Reviewed Jason's "creative brief" of requirements and guidelines for submissions. Several suggestions made about copyright ownership, trademarkability, image formats and sizes, awards, and judging. Current idea is to use an online voting process to narrow the field and let the finalist be chosen by a group of judges considering but not bound to the results of the online vote.

Full minutes Discuss on www-style

CSS3 . Info Shaun Inman proposes CSS Qualified Selectors

by Joost de Valk, 06 May 2008 06:42 PM

Shaun Inman did a very interesting post yesterday on what he describes as “CSS Qualified Selectors”. The idea is nice, he wants to be able to do:

a {
    text-decoration: none;
    color: #A10;
    border-bottom: 1px dashed #A10;
}

And then for images:

a < img { border: none; }

So if <img> has a parent <a>, the border isn’t there.

What’s most interesting about the post though is the comments. It seems, as Eric Meyer states there, that this kind of selector has been discussed quite a few times on the CSS mailing list, and isn’t doable. Dave Hyatt, one of the core WebKit developers, comments with a good explanation of why it can’t be done. It’s a nice read, and a good insight into the difficulties of developing a new standard.

CSS3 . Info A further opportunity to help evolve CSS 3

by Peter Gasston, 30 April 2008 03:46 PM

Jason Cranford Teague has volunteered to edit the CSS Basic UI, CSS Hyperlink Presentation, CSS Fonts and CSS Web Fonts modules and is looking for feedback from users on the latter two. He asks:

Tell me what you think are some of the font styles and features missing from the current specification. What do you expect to be able to do with typography on your Web pages that you can not do now? What are you doing now with kludges that you would like to see simpler ways of doing?

Leave a comment on his blog if you have any ideas; and why not leave a comment here, too, to let us know what your opinions are? No deadline has been given, but I suppose it’s the sooner, the better.

webbedENVIRONMENTS Web Typography: Tell Me What You Want

by Jason, 29 April 2008 08:28 PM

I'm going to be setting the new standards for typography on the Web, and I want your help.

CSS3 . Info Debug CSS3 (and more) with a dragonfly

by David Storey, 24 April 2008 10:17 PM

Opera has one of the better levels of support for CSS3 (and other standards), making it an ideal platform for experimenting with future technologies and new techniques that these standards will offer. However, this has always been let down by the fact that Opera is very lacking in the web developer tools segment. To be frank, Firebug and the Web Developer Toolbar blow away anything Opera has offered in this realm.

This short coming is about to change soon. Opera has just announced today, with the release of Opera 95 beta 2, that Opera Dragonfly will be Opera’s web developer tools. These will be released as an alpha on the 6^th of May. In line with their alpha status, the tools will not be feature complete, but they will show a good foundation of Opera’s developer tool vision.

Once released, Opera is looking for feedback on the tools, to make sure they fit the needs of real world web developers and designers. I’m looking forward to web developers getting their hands on the Opera Dragonfly and finding out what the impressions are. If you are interested then go the the Opera Dragonfly website on the 6^th or just open the Web Developer menu item from the tools menu. In the mean time, Opera 9.5 beta 2 (Kestrel) has been released today, so it is a good time to check out what CSS3 properties it supports.

CSS Working Group Blog Resolutions 2008-04-23

by fantasai, 24 April 2008 09:26 PM

Resolved

• The CSSWG would prefer for IRC logs to be hosted by W3C, but until W3C is capable of continuously logging the channel it is acceptable for them to be hosted by a third party.
• CSS Namespaces to be published as Candidate Recommendation.
• caretRangeFromPoint to be added to CSSOM View and marked at-risk; the CSSOM spec will then be republished as LC.
• (CSS2.1)ISSUE-35 (page-break-inside inheritance) proposal accepted.
• AOL will sponsor (host) CSS logo competition
• next F2F meeting in Cambridge, UK August 20-22

Other notes

• At least one member of the WG strongly desires a syntax for turning off logging for a particular IRC statement.
• Request for implementors interest in various CSS modules sent out yesterday (Tuesday). This does not leave much time for compiling the report and getting feedback from www-style.
• Charter draft was updated, needs to be reviewed.
• John Daggett and Jason Teague plan to send CSS3 Fonts from LC to WD: it's not clear what it's status is, there are no updates since 2002, and there are various requests for changes/features.

minutes, discuss

CSS Working Group Blog Resolutions 2008-04-16

by fantasai, 24 April 2008 09:14 PM

Resolved

• CSS2.1 Issue 37 proposal accepted.
• Media Queries will be published as Last Call Working Draft as soon as the W3C publishing moratorium ends.
• ISSUE-35 (CSS2.1) proposal accepted.

Other notes

• A lot of time was spent discussing how the chairs want to use Tracker to track the WG's activity. There was an extensive discussion regarding the intent of the process, the concern over potential overhead for editors, and specific suggestion(s) to the process. See minutes (bottom) for the chair's proposal.
• The CSSWG charter was discussed, in particular the wording on expected participation time requirements (1-2 days per week) and on relationships with other W3C groups.
• (CSS2.1) ISSUE-35 was discussed briefly, and the discussion postponed to the next week.

Minutes, discuss

The CSS3 Soapbox! Limitations of CSS

by fantasai, 16 April 2008 12:01 AM

Rockholderdesign gives a brief introduction to CSS and writes about some of its limitations.

CSS3 . Info Webkit provides implementation of CSS-based gradients

by James Hopkins, 15 April 2008 09:38 AM

I don’t have time at the moment to write a good summary, but the link to the announcement is below which includes some examples

CSS Gradients in Webkit

CSS Working Group Blog Notes and Resolutions 2008-04-09

by fantasai, 15 April 2008 03:16 AM

• Discussed media queries, should be ready for LC soon, but still has a couple open issue. Main one is whether to use

       @media (portrait) { ... }
       @media (landscape) { ... }
  

  or

       @media (orientation: portrait) { ... }
       @media (orientation: landscape) { ... }
  

• Discussed CSS2.1 Issue 8. Anne needs to come up with better wording before we discuss the two wording proposals. Seem to have agreement on the end result.

• Discussed CSS2.1 Issue 24. Interest in making {(['" matching style sheet global, need a wording proposal to continue discussion.

• Resolved: For CSS2.1 Issue 31 David Baron's proposal is accepted.

• Resolved: For (CSS2.1) ISSUE-1, second wording proposal is accepted:

  Insert before "It is recommended that the reference pixel be..."
  the sentence "It is recommended that the pixel unit refer to
  the whole number of device pixels that best approximates the
  reference pixel."
  

• Resolved: Add John Daggett (Mozilla Corporation) as CSS3 Fonts module editor.

Full minutes

CSS3 . Info New features proposed for CSS

by Peter Gasston, 10 April 2008 07:29 AM

This week has seen the release of a raft of new proposals for features to be integrated into the CSS specification:

• CSS Animation
• CSS Transforms
• CSS Transitions
• CSS Variables

I personally have reservations about the Visual Effects proposals, feeling this is better suited to Javascript, but I seem to be in the minority on this so I will cede to the majority. I’m pretty excited about Variables, however.

CSS3 . Info CSS Working Group latest resolutions

by Peter Gasston, 04 April 2008 09:09 AM

The CSS WG had a face-to-face meeting in San Diego last month, and have released their latest resolutions in a series of posts on their blog:

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI

Some of the highlights I saw on my first read through:

• Apple’s proposed animation & transition properties are to be considered.
• Web fonts are to be worked on with the SVG team
• The Advanced Layout module is still being discussed but will be renamed the Template Layout module
• A new type of list, tree-lines, was proposed
• A proposal for the use of constants will be published

Obviously there’s a lot more in there, but it’s nice to see that the Working Group is working!

CSS Working Group Blog Resolutions 2008-03 San Diego Part VI: CSSOM

by fantasai, 04 April 2008 07:45 AM

CSSOM View

• Resolved: Take CSSOM View spec to last call after edits described in the minutes are made.

CSSOM

• Noted: General agreement that the current CSSOM is badly designed and should be extended, but standardizing existing interfaces is the priority right now.

• Resolved: CSS specs below CR level should add canonicalization info to their property definitions once a canonicalization table for existing properties has been created.

• Resolved: If the CSSWG chooses to specify CSSOM interfaces for editors, that will be a separate spec from the main CSSOM.

CSS Working Group Blog Resolutions 2008-03 San Diego Part V: Future Features

by fantasai, 04 April 2008 07:39 AM

Highly experimental brainstorming-level stuff. No resolutions, just notes.

Tree List Styles

Discussed tree lists styling prompted by Andrew Fedoniouk.

• Noted: Solution should satisfy 80-90% case; no point in adopting if it only solves 10%.

• Noted: Designers will want control over color, width, style of lines. Using 'outline' or 'border' precludes giving the element a real outline or border.

• Idea: A pseudo-element could provide a place to put styling.

• Idea: One possible model is each list item has a T-shaped or L-shaped marker that connects with the previous.

• Idea: Another possible model is each list item has a horizontal bar marker and the vertical line belongs to the parent.

Multi-Style Elements (aka Collapsible Elements)

Idea was to have two pseudo-classes, one :normal and one :alternate. UA toggles between styles. (N styles also possible.)

Existence of the pseudos makes the element toggleable. There were strong reservations about that.

Bert's writeup is still Member's only.

Scriptable Selectors

Idea was that a selector accepts a JavaScript function that returns true or false, determining whether the selector matches or not. VERY strong reservations about this from implementors: executing functions during selector matching is scary, particularly if those functions are allowed to modify the elements during matching!

Alternate idea is to define a set of tokens on the element node, allow scripts to add and remove tokens, and match against that set.. thereby avoiding the execution of any functions during style matching.

Constants

Clear use case for importing colors from a site-wide style sheet. CSSWG wants more concrete use cases for anything beyond that.

fantasai points to webstandards.org comments and suggests macros for selectors, values, and declaration sets would fulfill most requests there.

CSSWG will post a simple proposal macros for values only, and see if that will cause web designers to post real examples of where more powerful macros are needed.

Changing the Subject of the Selector (Parent Selector)

Suggested to add this to Selectors 4. Need implementors' "strong interest".

text-orientation

Steve reports on conclusions from joint meeting with Paul and fantasai: plan is to introduce text-orientation, which operates on runs of tex--unlike XSLFO/SVG's glyph-orientation, which operates on individual glyphs. Glyph-orientation's behavior causes characters to be in the wrong order for some of its values. text-orientation will take keywords for common effects in vertical text.