[WEB4LIB] Re: CSS-2 "solution" and Font Tags

[Gimon, Charles A]

> To have to nest font instructions up front makes it difficult to 
> make minor variations on one's theme that just rub my hide 
> raw.  

If it's minor, use an inline style for those one or two exceptions. If you
have lots of exceptions, you may want to ask yourself why you need so many
exceptions.

> For example:  nesting font instructions inside <P> 
> tags:  what if I want some paragraphs separate and some I 
> don't want a blank space in between. 

Why would you want to have paragraphs handled differently? This raises more
questions about the structure of your documents than it answers.
Nevertheless, in standard CSS1, you should be able to define two or more
classes of paragraph with different margin settings, wihch ought to handle
what I think you're talking about here. It won't work in Netscape 4, but I
can't emphasize enough: this is because Netscape 4 is horribly broken in
this respect.

> And then, of course, if 
> you have many tags nested....   re:  <P><STRONG><I>...  Grr.  
> And then let's put some of the text in a table.  Oh, goody.  

CSS, if properly implemented, solves these issues.

> Ever seen what the differences are there between Netscape and IE?

Netscape 4's CSS implementation was coded by the famous billion monkeys at a
billion typewriters. That anything works at all is probably sheer
coincidence. IE 5, well, I refuse to call it "the best"--let's call it "the
least screwed up".

A world where CSS was properly implemented in all popular browsers would be
a nice world to live in, indeed. But for that to happen, Netscape 4 must
die, die, die. For a start, at least.

--Charles Gimon
  Web Coordinator
  Minneapolis Public Library