2004/id/draft-ietf-html-style-01.txt


HTML and Style Sheets                                                23 Jan 96

   INTERNET DRAFT                                 Bos, Raggett & Lie,
   Expires in six months                          World Wide Web Consortium

                            HTML and Style Sheets

                        <draft-ietf-html-style-01.txt>

Status of this Memo

   This document is an Internet draft. Internet drafts are working
   documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas
   and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute
   working information as Internet drafts. 

   Internet Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six
   months and can be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents
   at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet drafts as reference
   material or to cite them as other than as "work in progress". 

   To learn the current status of any Internet draft please check the
   "lid-abstracts.txt" listing contained in the Internet drafts shadow
   directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), nic.nordu.net (Europe),
   munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), ds.internic.net (US East coast) or
   ftp.isi.edu (US West coast). Further information about the IETF can
   be found at URL: http://www.ietf.org/ 

   Distribution of this document is unlimited. Please send comments to
   the HTML working group (HTML-WG) of the Internet Engineering Task
   Force (IETF) at <html-wg@w3.org>. Discussions of this group are
   archived at URL:  http://www.acl.lanl.gov/HTML-WG/archives.html. 

   This specification is also available via the Web in hypertext form
   as a Working Draft of the World Wide Web Consortium, see:
   http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR 

   Authors:
       Bert Bos <bert@w3.org>,
       Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org>,
       Hakon Lie <howcome@w3.org> 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Abstract

   The HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a simple markup language
   used to create hypertext documents that are portable from one
   platform to another. HTML documents are SGML documents with generic
   semantics that are appropriate for representing information from a
   wide range of applications. This specification extends HTML to
   provide support for style rules expressed in separately specified
   notations. It is no longer necessary to extend HTML when new styles
   are needed. Style rules can be (a) included with individual HTML
   elements to which they apply, (b) grouped together in the document
   head, or (c) placed in associated style sheets. This specification

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HTML and Style Sheets                                                23 Jan 96

   does not specify particular style sheet notations, leaving that to
   other specifications. 

Contents

   *   Associating HTML documents with style sheets  ...................... 2

   *   Media dependencies  ................................................ 3

   *   The LINK element  .................................................. 3

   *   The STYLE element  ................................................. 4

   *   Common attributes  ................................................. 5

   *   The SPAN element  .................................................. 7

   *   The DIV element  ................................................... 7

   *   User interface and user supplied style sheets 

   *   Performance issues  ................................................ 9

   *   Limitations of this specification  ................................. 9

   *   References  ....................................................... 10

Associating HTML documents with Style Sheets

   There are several approaches for associating HTML documents with
   separate style sheets: 

   User applied style sheets 
       The user agent may provide the means for users to select and
       apply style sheets.

       
   Implicit associations 
       The appropriate style sheet may be implied by the URL or other
       information describing the resource. This approach allows style
       sheets to be retrieved in advance of, or at the same time as,
       the HTML document itself. Implicit associations are not defined
       in this report.

       
   Explicit associations 
       The author can specify one or more alternative style sheets for
       an HTML document using one of the methods described below.

       
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HTML and Style Sheets                                                23 Jan 96

   In HTML it is also possible to put style sheets in-line in the
   document. HTML is extended with a new element and a new attribute
   (both called STYLE), as described below. No matter how style is
   associated with HTML, the user should be made aware that a
   particular style has been applied and should have the option of
   turning it off. 

   To make it easier to apply a style to parts of a document, two new
   elements for use in the body of an HTML document are defined: DIV
   and SPAN. The first is to enclose a division (chapter, section,
   etc.) of a document, making it possible to give a whole section a
   distinctive style. The latter is used within paragraphs, similarly
   to EM, but in cases where none of the other HTML elements (EM,
   STRONG, VAR, CODE, etc.) apply. 

Media dependencies

   Styles may often be designed for a restricted range of media, e.g.
   for graphical user interfaces with scalable fonts and millions of
   colors; for A4 paper media; for speech output; or for simple
   terminals with one monospace font. This proposal doesn't provide an
   explicit means to state the conditions under which a given style
   sheet is applicable. 

   Style sheet notations may themselves provide support for media
   dependencies. Another approach is to use a generic URL to reference
   a style sheet, and to make the binding to a specific URL according
   to the media required. This will be described in a separate working
   draft. 

The LINK element

   In HTML, the LINK element is used to create a typed hyperlink
   between the document and some other resource. The REL attribute
   defines the type of the link. With REL=stylesheet, the LINK element
   can also be used to link to a style sheet. 

   Authors can use LINK elements to offer readers a choice of style
   sheets, e.g: 

       <LINK TITLE="Old" REL=stylesheet HREF="old.style" TYPE="application/dsssl">
       <LINK TITLE="New" REL=stylesheet HREF="new.style" TYPE="application/rtf">
       <LINK TITLE="Wacky" REL=stylesheet HREF="wacky.style" TYPE="text/css">
       <TITLE>ACME Widgets Corp</TITLE>
   
       <H1>ACME Widgets Corp</H1>
       <P>If your browser supports style sheets, try our new look
       in old, new and wacky styles.
       
       ...

   This specification builds upon the definition of the LINK element in
   HTML 2.0 (RFC 1866) in the following respects: 

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HTML and Style Sheets                                                23 Jan 96

       <!ELEMENT LINK - O EMPTY>
       <!ATTLIST LINK
           href    CDATA     #REQUIRED  -- Uniform Resource Locator --
           title   CDATA     #IMPLIED   -- advisory title string --
           rel     CDATA     #IMPLIED   -- forward link type --
           rev     CDATA     #IMPLIED   -- reverse link type --
           type    CDATA     #IMPLIED   -- advisory Internet media type --
           >

   *   The forward link type "stylesheet" is hereby defined to signify
       that the associated LINK element specifies a link to a style
       sheet that may be applied to the HTML document containing the
       LINK element. The HREF attribute specifies the network address
       of the linked style sheet. 

   *   If there are several such links, then these are considered as
       providing a choice of alternative style sheets. The character
       string supplied with the TITLE attribute is recommended for use
       in building a menu of alternative styles. Note that the order of
       such LINK elements in the document markup does not signify
       preference order. 

   *   The TYPE attribute may be used to specify the Internet Media
       type and associated parameters for the linked style sheet. This
       allows the user agent to disregard style sheets in unsupported
       notations, without the need to first make a remote query across
       the network. 

The STYLE element

   A single STYLE element may be included in the document head. It
   allows authors to include style rules within the HTML document, e.g. 

       <HEAD>
       <TITLE>Title</TITLE>
       <STYLE TYPE="text/css">
         H1 { color: brown }
         P  { color: blue  }
       </STYLE>
       </HEAD>

   The STYLE element is formally defined by: 

       <!ELEMENT style - O (#PCDATA)>
       <!ATTLIST style
           type     CDATA    #REQUIRED -- Internet media type for style --
           title    CDATA    #IMPLIED  -- advisory title for this style --
           >

   The attributes are defined as follows: 


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HTML and Style Sheets                                                23 Jan 96

   TYPE 
       This required attribute defines the style notation as an
       Internet Media type including associated parameters. It is used
       in the same way as with LINK elements. The type applies to style
       rules in the STYLE element as well as those attached with the
       STYLE attribute.

       
   TITLE 
       The user agent is recommended to use the title string when
       building a menu of alternative style sheets. This will only
       happen if the STYLE element occurs together with linked style
       sheets as specified by one or more LINK elements. In the absence
       of such LINK elements, the TITLE attribute may be used to
       describe the style sheet for the purpose of allowing the user to
       turn style sheets on and off.

       
   The content model for the STYLE element precludes SGML tags, and the
   end tag of a STYLE element can usually be omitted, e.g. when the
   STYLE element is followed by another element. Some characters may
   require escaping with their SGML entity names: "&" followed by a
   letter or "#" character should be represented by "&" while "<"
   followed by a letter, "!" or "?" character should be represented by
   "<". 

   When the STYLE element occurs together with one or more LINK
   elements that specify linked style sheets, the user agent should
   consider the STYLE element in preference to the LINK elements. The
   rendering implied by the STYLE element is independent of such LINK
   elements, i.e. it is not cascaded with style sheets specified by
   LINK elements. 

Common attributes

   To support effective use of style sheets with HTML documents a
   number of common attributes are proposed. These can be used with
   most HTML elements. In general, all attribute names and values in
   this specification are case insensitive, except where noted
   otherwise. 

   
   <!ENTITY % attrs
          "id      ID       #IMPLIED  -- element identifier --
           class   NAMES    #IMPLIED  -- for subclassing elements --
           style   CDATA    #IMPLIED  -- rendering annotation --
           lang    NAME     #IMPLIED  -- as per RFC 1766 --
           dir   (ltr|rtl)  #IMPLIED  -- I18N text direction --">
   

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HTML and Style Sheets                                                23 Jan 96

   ID 
       Used to define a document-wide identifier. This can be used for
       naming positions within documents as the destination of a
       hypertext link. It may also be used by style sheets for
       rendering an element in a unique style. An ID attribute value is
       an SGML NAME token. NAME tokens are formed by an initial letter
       followed by letters, digits, "-" and "." characters. The letters
       are restricted to A-Z and a-z. 

   CLASS 
       A space separated list of SGML NAME tokens. CLASS names specify
       that the element belongs to the corresponding named classes.
       These may be used by style sheets to provide class dependent
       renderings. 

   STYLE 
       A text string providing rendering information specific to this
       element. The notation is specified with the STYLE element in the
       document head. 

       For example: 

           <TITLE>Test Document</TITLE>
           <STYLE TYPE="text/css">
           <P STYLE="color: red; font-style: small-caps">This text should
            be in small capitals and colored red!

       The end tag for the STYLE element has been omitted here since
       the element is unambiguously ended by the <P> start tag.

       
   LANG 
       A LANG attribute identifies the natural language used by the
       content of the associated element.The syntax and registry of
       language values are defined by RFC 1766. In summary the language
       is given as a primary tag followed by zero or more subtags,
       separated by "-". White space is not allowed and all tags are
       case insensitive. The name space of tags is administered by
       IANA. The two letter primary tag is an ISO 639 language
       abbreviation, while the initial subtag is a two letter ISO 3166
       country code. Example values for LANG include: 

             en, en-US, en-uk, i-cherokee, x-pig-latin.

   DIR 
       Human writing systems are grouped into scripts, which determine
       amongst other things, the direction the characters are written.
       Elements of the Latin script are nominally left to right, while
       those of the Arabic script are nominally right to left. These
       characters have what is called strong directionality. Other
       characters can be directionally neutral (spaces) or weak
       (punctuation). 

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HTML and Style Sheets                                                23 Jan 96

       The DIR attribute specifies an encapsulation boundary which
       governs the interpretation of neutral and weakly directional
       characters. It does not override the directionality of strongly
       directional characters. The DIR attribute value is one of LTR
       for left to right, or RTL for right to left, e.g. DIR=RTL. 

The SPAN element

       <!ELEMENT span O O (%text)*>
       <!ATTLIST span
               %attrs;     -- id, class, style, lang and dir --
               >

   Sometimes it is desirable to apply a style to some text which
   doesn't have a structural role or established rendering convention.
   For instance, the first few words of an article may be rendered as
   small capital letters ("small-caps"). In such situations it is
   inappropriate to use an existing tag such as EM: on existing user
   agents the first few words would be mysteriously italicized. The new
   SPAN tag is recommended instead, as it has no effect on existing
   user agents. 

   An example based on CSS: 

       <TITLE>Title</TITLE>
       <STYLE TYPE="text/css">
       SPAN { font-style: small-caps }
       </STYLE>
       <P><SPAN>The first</SPAN> few words of this
       article is in small-caps.

   This would be formatted to look something like: 

       THE FIRST few words of this 
       article is in small-caps.

   While on an existing user agent it would look like: 

       The first few words of this 
       article is small-caps.
   

   The SPAN element can be used anywhere that the HTML EM element is
   allowed. 

The DIV element

       <!ELEMENT div - - (%body.content)*>
       <!ATTLIST div
               %attrs;     -- id, class, style, lang and dir --
               align    (left|center|right|justify)  #IMPLIED
               >


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HTML and Style Sheets                                                23 Jan 96

   The DIV element is used with the CLASS attribute to represent
   different kinds of containers, e.g. chapter, section, abstract, or
   appendix. DIV allows the enclosed group of elements to be given a
   distinctive style. For example: 

       <DIV CLASS=Abstract>
       <P>The Chieftain product range is the white-hot hope for the
       coming year. This report sets out how to position Chieftain
       against competing products.
   
       <P>Chieftain replaces the Commander range, which will
       remain on the price list until further notice.
       </DIV>

   The DIV element can be used anywhere that the HTML P element is
   allowed. The content model for DIV allows headers, lists, paragraphs
   as well as other DIV elements etc. This allows DIVs to be nested, to
   form hierarchies of chapters, sections, and subsections etc.

   DIV can be used with an ALIGN attribute to specify the default
   horizontal alignment for the contents of the DIV element. This is
   needed for compatibility with deployed browsers and may be overriden
   by style sheets.

   ALIGN=LEFT 
       Lines are aligned flush left 

   ALIGN=CENTER 
       Lines are centered. 

   ALIGN=RIGHT 
       Lines are aligned flush right 

   ALIGN=JUSTIFY 
       Lines are justified where practical, otherwise this has the same
       effect as ALIGN=LEFT 

User interface and user supplied style sheets

   In an interactive user agent, the user should be made aware that a
   particular style sheet has been applied, and be given the option of
   turning it off or selecting a different style. A flag in the corner
   of the window and a toggle in a menubar can be sufficient.

   It may be possible for the user to combine several of the available
   style sheets. It should be possible for the user to choose a
   personal style instead of, or in combination with, style sheets
   supplied by the author.

   When a user agent applies a style sheet to a document while the
   author of that document has indicated a preference for a different
   style sheet, the user agent may have to alert the user to that fact.
   Exactly how and when that is done is outside the scope of this

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HTML and Style Sheets                                                23 Jan 96

   report. E.g., the CSS style sheet language gives rules for the
   conditions under which a user is allowed to override the author's choices.

Performance issues

   Some people have voiced concerns over performance issues for style
   sheets. For instance, fetching a LINKed style sheet may delay the
   full presentation for the user. A similar situation arises if the
   document head includes a lengthy set of style rules. 

   The current proposal sidesteps these issues by allowing authors to
   include rendering instructions within each HTML element. The
   rendering information is then always available by the time the user
   agent wants to render each element. 

   In many cases, authors will take advantage of a common style sheet
   for a group of documents. In this case, distributing style rules
   throughout the document will actually lead to worse performance than
   using a linked style sheet, since for most documents, the style
   sheet will already be present in the local cache. The public
   availability of good style sheets will encourage this effect. 

Limitations of this specification

   This specification limits the number of STYLE elements to one per
   document. If later revisions allow multiple STYLE elements in the
   document head (e.g. to cater for alternative styles) one will need a
   different way of specifying the style notation for STYLE attributes
   on the elements in the document body. The suggested choice is an
   attribute on the BODY element, e.g. "styletype", with the same
   definition as the "type" attribute for the STYLE element. 

   Also, there is no way to specify that two or more style sheet are to
   be merged. A common case is where the style of a document is based
   on an organization-wide style sheet (which is likely to be cached),
   but needs document-specific overrides. This functionality may be
   added in the future, but can also be provided by the style sheet
   notation itself, e.g. in CSS one can specify: 

       <HEAD>
       <TITLE>Title</TITLE>
       <STYLE TYPE="text/css">
         @import "house-style.css"
         @import "draft-report.css"
         H1 { color: red }     /* override cascaded style sheets */
       </STYLE>
       </HEAD>


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HTML and Style Sheets                                                23 Jan 96

References

   RFC 1866 
       "Hypertext Markup Language - 2.0" by T. Berners-Lee & D.
       Connolly, November 1995. This document can be downloaded from
       ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1866.txt. 

   RFC 1766 
       "Tags for the Identification of Languages", by H. Alvestrand,
       UNINETT, March 1995. This document can be downloaded from
       ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1766.txt. 

   CSS 
       "Cascading style sheets" by Hakon Lie & Bert Bos, December 1995.
       The latest version of this document can be downloaded from
       http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/WD-css1.html 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The World Wide Web Consortium: http://www.w3.org/ 


Bos, Raggett & Lie                                                     Page 10

1
2	HTML and Style Sheets 23 Jan 96
3
4	INTERNET DRAFT Bos, Raggett & Lie,
5	Expires in six months World Wide Web Consortium
6
7	HTML and Style Sheets
8
9	<draft-ietf-html-style-01.txt>
10
11	Status of this Memo
12
13	This document is an Internet draft. Internet drafts are working
14	documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas
15	and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute
16	working information as Internet drafts.
17
18	Internet Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six
19	months and can be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents
20	at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet drafts as reference
21	material or to cite them as other than as "work in progress".
22
23	To learn the current status of any Internet draft please check the
24	"lid-abstracts.txt" listing contained in the Internet drafts shadow
25	directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), nic.nordu.net (Europe),
26	munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), ds.internic.net (US East coast) or
27	ftp.isi.edu (US West coast). Further information about the IETF can
28	be found at URL: http://www.ietf.org/
29
30	Distribution of this document is unlimited. Please send comments to
31	the HTML working group (HTML-WG) of the Internet Engineering Task
32	Force (IETF) at <html-wg@w3.org>. Discussions of this group are
33	archived at URL: http://www.acl.lanl.gov/HTML-WG/archives.html.
34
35	This specification is also available via the Web in hypertext form
36	as a Working Draft of the World Wide Web Consortium, see:
37	http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR
38
39	Authors:
40	Bert Bos <bert@w3.org>,
41	Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org>,
42	Hakon Lie <howcome@w3.org>
43
44	------------------------------------------------------------------------------
45	Abstract
46
47	The HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a simple markup language
48	used to create hypertext documents that are portable from one
49	platform to another. HTML documents are SGML documents with generic
50	semantics that are appropriate for representing information from a
51	wide range of applications. This specification extends HTML to
52	provide support for style rules expressed in separately specified
53	notations. It is no longer necessary to extend HTML when new styles
54	are needed. Style rules can be (a) included with individual HTML
55	elements to which they apply, (b) grouped together in the document
56	head, or (c) placed in associated style sheets. This specification
57
58	Bos, Raggett & Lie Page 1
59
60
61
62	HTML and Style Sheets 23 Jan 96
63
64	does not specify particular style sheet notations, leaving that to
65	other specifications.
66
67	Contents
68
69	* Associating HTML documents with style sheets ...................... 2
70
71	* Media dependencies ................................................ 3
72
73	* The LINK element .................................................. 3
74
75	* The STYLE element ................................................. 4
76
77	* Common attributes ................................................. 5
78
79	* The SPAN element .................................................. 7
80
81	* The DIV element ................................................... 7
82
83	* User interface and user supplied style sheets
84
85	* Performance issues ................................................ 9
86
87	* Limitations of this specification ................................. 9
88
89	* References ....................................................... 10
90
91	Associating HTML documents with Style Sheets
92
93	There are several approaches for associating HTML documents with
94	separate style sheets:
95
96	User applied style sheets
97	The user agent may provide the means for users to select and
98	apply style sheets.
99
100
101
102	Implicit associations
103	The appropriate style sheet may be implied by the URL or other
104	information describing the resource. This approach allows style
105	sheets to be retrieved in advance of, or at the same time as,
106	the HTML document itself. Implicit associations are not defined
107	in this report.
108
109
110
111	Explicit associations
112	The author can specify one or more alternative style sheets for
113	an HTML document using one of the methods described below.
114
115
116
117
118	Bos, Raggett & Lie Page 2
119
120
121
122	HTML and Style Sheets 23 Jan 96
123
124	In HTML it is also possible to put style sheets in-line in the
125	document. HTML is extended with a new element and a new attribute
126	(both called STYLE), as described below. No matter how style is
127	associated with HTML, the user should be made aware that a
128	particular style has been applied and should have the option of
129	turning it off.
130
131	To make it easier to apply a style to parts of a document, two new
132	elements for use in the body of an HTML document are defined: DIV
133	and SPAN. The first is to enclose a division (chapter, section,
134	etc.) of a document, making it possible to give a whole section a
135	distinctive style. The latter is used within paragraphs, similarly
136	to EM, but in cases where none of the other HTML elements (EM,
137	STRONG, VAR, CODE, etc.) apply.
138
139	Media dependencies
140
141	Styles may often be designed for a restricted range of media, e.g.
142	for graphical user interfaces with scalable fonts and millions of
143	colors; for A4 paper media; for speech output; or for simple
144	terminals with one monospace font. This proposal doesn't provide an
145	explicit means to state the conditions under which a given style
146	sheet is applicable.
147
148	Style sheet notations may themselves provide support for media
149	dependencies. Another approach is to use a generic URL to reference
150	a style sheet, and to make the binding to a specific URL according
151	to the media required. This will be described in a separate working
152	draft.
153
154	The LINK element
155
156	In HTML, the LINK element is used to create a typed hyperlink
157	between the document and some other resource. The REL attribute
158	defines the type of the link. With REL=stylesheet, the LINK element
159	can also be used to link to a style sheet.
160
161	Authors can use LINK elements to offer readers a choice of style
162	sheets, e.g:
163
164	<LINK TITLE="Old" REL=stylesheet HREF="old.style" TYPE="application/dsssl">
165	<LINK TITLE="New" REL=stylesheet HREF="new.style" TYPE="application/rtf">
166	<LINK TITLE="Wacky" REL=stylesheet HREF="wacky.style" TYPE="text/css">
167	<TITLE>ACME Widgets Corp</TITLE>
168
169	<H1>ACME Widgets Corp</H1>
170	<P>If your browser supports style sheets, try our new look
171	in old, new and wacky styles.
172
173	...
174
175	This specification builds upon the definition of the LINK element in
176	HTML 2.0 (RFC 1866) in the following respects:
177
178	Bos, Raggett & Lie Page 3
179
180
181
182	HTML and Style Sheets 23 Jan 96
183
184	<!ELEMENT LINK - O EMPTY>
185	<!ATTLIST LINK
186	href CDATA #REQUIRED -- Uniform Resource Locator --
187	title CDATA #IMPLIED -- advisory title string --
188	rel CDATA #IMPLIED -- forward link type --
189	rev CDATA #IMPLIED -- reverse link type --
190	type CDATA #IMPLIED -- advisory Internet media type --
191	>
192
193	* The forward link type "stylesheet" is hereby defined to signify
194	that the associated LINK element specifies a link to a style
195	sheet that may be applied to the HTML document containing the
196	LINK element. The HREF attribute specifies the network address
197	of the linked style sheet.
198
199	* If there are several such links, then these are considered as
200	providing a choice of alternative style sheets. The character
201	string supplied with the TITLE attribute is recommended for use
202	in building a menu of alternative styles. Note that the order of
203	such LINK elements in the document markup does not signify
204	preference order.
205
206	* The TYPE attribute may be used to specify the Internet Media
207	type and associated parameters for the linked style sheet. This
208	allows the user agent to disregard style sheets in unsupported
209	notations, without the need to first make a remote query across
210	the network.
211
212	The STYLE element
213
214	A single STYLE element may be included in the document head. It
215	allows authors to include style rules within the HTML document, e.g.
216
217	<HEAD>
218	<TITLE>Title</TITLE>
219	<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
220	H1 { color: brown }
221	P { color: blue }
222	</STYLE>
223	</HEAD>
224
225	The STYLE element is formally defined by:
226
227	<!ELEMENT style - O (#PCDATA)>
228	<!ATTLIST style
229	type CDATA #REQUIRED -- Internet media type for style --
230	title CDATA #IMPLIED -- advisory title for this style --
231	>
232
233	The attributes are defined as follows:
234
235
236
237
238	Bos, Raggett & Lie Page 4
239
240
241
242	HTML and Style Sheets 23 Jan 96
243
244	TYPE
245	This required attribute defines the style notation as an
246	Internet Media type including associated parameters. It is used
247	in the same way as with LINK elements. The type applies to style
248	rules in the STYLE element as well as those attached with the
249	STYLE attribute.
250
251
252
253	TITLE
254	The user agent is recommended to use the title string when
255	building a menu of alternative style sheets. This will only
256	happen if the STYLE element occurs together with linked style
257	sheets as specified by one or more LINK elements. In the absence
258	of such LINK elements, the TITLE attribute may be used to
259	describe the style sheet for the purpose of allowing the user to
260	turn style sheets on and off.
261
262
263
264	The content model for the STYLE element precludes SGML tags, and the
265	end tag of a STYLE element can usually be omitted, e.g. when the
266	STYLE element is followed by another element. Some characters may
267	require escaping with their SGML entity names: "&" followed by a
268	letter or "#" character should be represented by "&" while "<"
269	followed by a letter, "!" or "?" character should be represented by
270	"<".
271
272	When the STYLE element occurs together with one or more LINK
273	elements that specify linked style sheets, the user agent should
274	consider the STYLE element in preference to the LINK elements. The
275	rendering implied by the STYLE element is independent of such LINK
276	elements, i.e. it is not cascaded with style sheets specified by
277	LINK elements.
278
279	Common attributes
280
281	To support effective use of style sheets with HTML documents a
282	number of common attributes are proposed. These can be used with
283	most HTML elements. In general, all attribute names and values in
284	this specification are case insensitive, except where noted
285	otherwise.
286
287
288	<!ENTITY % attrs
289	"id ID #IMPLIED -- element identifier --
290	class NAMES #IMPLIED -- for subclassing elements --
291	style CDATA #IMPLIED -- rendering annotation --
292	lang NAME #IMPLIED -- as per RFC 1766 --
293	dir (ltr\|rtl) #IMPLIED -- I18N text direction --">
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298	Bos, Raggett & Lie Page 5
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302	HTML and Style Sheets 23 Jan 96
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304	ID
305	Used to define a document-wide identifier. This can be used for
306	naming positions within documents as the destination of a
307	hypertext link. It may also be used by style sheets for
308	rendering an element in a unique style. An ID attribute value is
309	an SGML NAME token. NAME tokens are formed by an initial letter
310	followed by letters, digits, "-" and "." characters. The letters
311	are restricted to A-Z and a-z.
312
313	CLASS
314	A space separated list of SGML NAME tokens. CLASS names specify
315	that the element belongs to the corresponding named classes.
316	These may be used by style sheets to provide class dependent
317	renderings.
318
319	STYLE
320	A text string providing rendering information specific to this
321	element. The notation is specified with the STYLE element in the
322	document head.
323
324	For example:
325
326	<TITLE>Test Document</TITLE>
327	<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
328	<P STYLE="color: red; font-style: small-caps">This text should
329	be in small capitals and colored red!
330
331	The end tag for the STYLE element has been omitted here since
332	the element is unambiguously ended by the <P> start tag.
333
334
335
336	LANG
337	A LANG attribute identifies the natural language used by the
338	content of the associated element.The syntax and registry of
339	language values are defined by RFC 1766. In summary the language
340	is given as a primary tag followed by zero or more subtags,
341	separated by "-". White space is not allowed and all tags are
342	case insensitive. The name space of tags is administered by
343	IANA. The two letter primary tag is an ISO 639 language
344	abbreviation, while the initial subtag is a two letter ISO 3166
345	country code. Example values for LANG include:
346
347	en, en-US, en-uk, i-cherokee, x-pig-latin.
348
349	DIR
350	Human writing systems are grouped into scripts, which determine
351	amongst other things, the direction the characters are written.
352	Elements of the Latin script are nominally left to right, while
353	those of the Arabic script are nominally right to left. These
354	characters have what is called strong directionality. Other
355	characters can be directionally neutral (spaces) or weak
356	(punctuation).
357
358	Bos, Raggett & Lie Page 6
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360
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362	HTML and Style Sheets 23 Jan 96
363
364	The DIR attribute specifies an encapsulation boundary which
365	governs the interpretation of neutral and weakly directional
366	characters. It does not override the directionality of strongly
367	directional characters. The DIR attribute value is one of LTR
368	for left to right, or RTL for right to left, e.g. DIR=RTL.
369
370	The SPAN element
371
372	<!ELEMENT span O O (%text)*>
373	<!ATTLIST span
374	%attrs; -- id, class, style, lang and dir --
375	>
376
377	Sometimes it is desirable to apply a style to some text which
378	doesn't have a structural role or established rendering convention.
379	For instance, the first few words of an article may be rendered as
380	small capital letters ("small-caps"). In such situations it is
381	inappropriate to use an existing tag such as EM: on existing user
382	agents the first few words would be mysteriously italicized. The new
383	SPAN tag is recommended instead, as it has no effect on existing
384	user agents.
385
386	An example based on CSS:
387
388	<TITLE>Title</TITLE>
389	<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
390	SPAN { font-style: small-caps }
391	</STYLE>
392	<P><SPAN>The first</SPAN> few words of this
393	article is in small-caps.
394
395	This would be formatted to look something like:
396
397	THE FIRST few words of this
398	article is in small-caps.
399
400	While on an existing user agent it would look like:
401
402	The first few words of this
403	article is small-caps.
404
405
406	The SPAN element can be used anywhere that the HTML EM element is
407	allowed.
408
409	The DIV element
410
411	<!ELEMENT div - - (%body.content)*>
412	<!ATTLIST div
413	%attrs; -- id, class, style, lang and dir --
414	align (left\|center\|right\|justify) #IMPLIED
415	>
416
417
418	Bos, Raggett & Lie Page 7
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420
421
422	HTML and Style Sheets 23 Jan 96
423
424	The DIV element is used with the CLASS attribute to represent
425	different kinds of containers, e.g. chapter, section, abstract, or
426	appendix. DIV allows the enclosed group of elements to be given a
427	distinctive style. For example:
428
429	<DIV CLASS=Abstract>
430	<P>The Chieftain product range is the white-hot hope for the
431	coming year. This report sets out how to position Chieftain
432	against competing products.
433
434	<P>Chieftain replaces the Commander range, which will
435	remain on the price list until further notice.
436	</DIV>
437
438	The DIV element can be used anywhere that the HTML P element is
439	allowed. The content model for DIV allows headers, lists, paragraphs
440	as well as other DIV elements etc. This allows DIVs to be nested, to
441	form hierarchies of chapters, sections, and subsections etc.
442
443	DIV can be used with an ALIGN attribute to specify the default
444	horizontal alignment for the contents of the DIV element. This is
445	needed for compatibility with deployed browsers and may be overriden
446	by style sheets.
447
448	ALIGN=LEFT
449	Lines are aligned flush left
450
451	ALIGN=CENTER
452	Lines are centered.
453
454	ALIGN=RIGHT
455	Lines are aligned flush right
456
457	ALIGN=JUSTIFY
458	Lines are justified where practical, otherwise this has the same
459	effect as ALIGN=LEFT
460
461	User interface and user supplied style sheets
462
463	In an interactive user agent, the user should be made aware that a
464	particular style sheet has been applied, and be given the option of
465	turning it off or selecting a different style. A flag in the corner
466	of the window and a toggle in a menubar can be sufficient.
467
468	It may be possible for the user to combine several of the available
469	style sheets. It should be possible for the user to choose a
470	personal style instead of, or in combination with, style sheets
471	supplied by the author.
472
473	When a user agent applies a style sheet to a document while the
474	author of that document has indicated a preference for a different
475	style sheet, the user agent may have to alert the user to that fact.
476	Exactly how and when that is done is outside the scope of this
477
478	Bos, Raggett & Lie Page 8
479
480
481
482	HTML and Style Sheets 23 Jan 96
483
484	report. E.g., the CSS style sheet language gives rules for the
485	conditions under which a user is allowed to override the author's choices.
486
487	Performance issues
488
489	Some people have voiced concerns over performance issues for style
490	sheets. For instance, fetching a LINKed style sheet may delay the
491	full presentation for the user. A similar situation arises if the
492	document head includes a lengthy set of style rules.
493
494	The current proposal sidesteps these issues by allowing authors to
495	include rendering instructions within each HTML element. The
496	rendering information is then always available by the time the user
497	agent wants to render each element.
498
499	In many cases, authors will take advantage of a common style sheet
500	for a group of documents. In this case, distributing style rules
501	throughout the document will actually lead to worse performance than
502	using a linked style sheet, since for most documents, the style
503	sheet will already be present in the local cache. The public
504	availability of good style sheets will encourage this effect.
505
506	Limitations of this specification
507
508	This specification limits the number of STYLE elements to one per
509	document. If later revisions allow multiple STYLE elements in the
510	document head (e.g. to cater for alternative styles) one will need a
511	different way of specifying the style notation for STYLE attributes
512	on the elements in the document body. The suggested choice is an
513	attribute on the BODY element, e.g. "styletype", with the same
514	definition as the "type" attribute for the STYLE element.
515
516	Also, there is no way to specify that two or more style sheet are to
517	be merged. A common case is where the style of a document is based
518	on an organization-wide style sheet (which is likely to be cached),
519	but needs document-specific overrides. This functionality may be
520	added in the future, but can also be provided by the style sheet
521	notation itself, e.g. in CSS one can specify:
522
523	<HEAD>
524	<TITLE>Title</TITLE>
525	<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
526	@import "house-style.css"
527	@import "draft-report.css"
528	H1 { color: red } /* override cascaded style sheets */
529	</STYLE>
530	</HEAD>
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538	Bos, Raggett & Lie Page 9
539
540
541
542	HTML and Style Sheets 23 Jan 96
543
544	References
545
546	RFC 1866
547	"Hypertext Markup Language - 2.0" by T. Berners-Lee & D.
548	Connolly, November 1995. This document can be downloaded from
549	ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1866.txt.
550
551	RFC 1766
552	"Tags for the Identification of Languages", by H. Alvestrand,
553	UNINETT, March 1995. This document can be downloaded from
554	ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1766.txt.
555
556	CSS
557	"Cascading style sheets" by Hakon Lie & Bert Bos, December 1995.
558	The latest version of this document can be downloaded from
559	http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/WD-css1.html
560
561	------------------------------------------------------------------------------
562	The World Wide Web Consortium: http://www.w3.org/
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