Re: [CSS21][css3-ui] defining 'cursor: auto' properly

On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 3:53 AM, L. David Baron <dbaron@dbaron.org> wrote:
> The 'auto' value of the 'cursor' property currently has, in both:
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/REC-CSS2-20110607/ui.html#propdef-cursor
> [2] http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-ui/#cursor
> the definition:
>   # auto
>   #   The UA determines the cursor to display based on the current context.
> which is nowhere near clear enough to lead to interoperability.
>
> This has been previously discussed in:
> [3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2000Jan/thread.html#msg21
> [4] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-css-wg/2001JulSep/0388.html (attached, since I was the sole author and can thus change its confidentiality level)
> [5] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-css-wg/2001OctDec/0014.html (teleconference minutes 2001-10-08, member confidential)
> [6] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-css-wg/2002JulSep/0021.html (my comments on a member-confidential draft of css3-ui, largely restating the above)
> [7] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-css-wg/2002JulSep/0289.html (Ian Hickson's Last Call comments on CSS 2.1, again largely just restating the above)
>
> The basic problem is that there are two basic interpretations of the
> spec (with various options in between):
>
>   (1) All UA default behavior for the 'cursor' property must be
>   encoded in the 'auto' value; using the 'cursor' property in the UA
>   style sheet is forbidden.
>
>   (2) The need for an 'auto' value exists only because there are
>   some elements that should have a 'text' or 'vertical-text' cursor
>   for part of the element and the 'default' cursor for other parts
>   of the element.  The 'auto' value exists only to cover this case,
>   and all other UA default behavior should be described in the UA
>   style sheet as for the rest of CSS.
>
> I strongly prefer option (2), since it is more in line with the way
> the rest of CSS works in terms of cascading.  Gecko implements
> option (2).
>
> Ian Hickson's proposal for option (2) quoting from [7] above is:
>   # auto
>   #   Same as 'text' when the cursor is over text, otherwise 'default'.
>
> Adjusting this for the possibility of vertical text yields:
>   # auto
>   #   Same as 'text' or 'vertical-text' when the cursor is over text
>   #   (depending on the glyph orientation), otherwise 'default'.
>
> (I'd like this text to be more precise; I think glyph orientation is
> the correct term based on
> http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-writing-modes/#text-flow and
> http://fantasai.inkedblade.net/style/discuss/vertical-text/paper ,
> but I can't find any terms for the possible values glyph orientation
> can have.)
>
> I propose that we adopt the first of these definitions as errata to
> CSS 2.1 and the second (possibly revised with better terminology and
> references) for css3-ui.

I find this acceptable.

~TJ

Received on Monday, 21 January 2013 19:20:05 UTC