Subject: [css-d] -moz rules

From: tarquin at planetunreal.com (tarquin)
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 10:37:55 +0100

what are your opinions on -moz CSS rules?
as seen here to make rounded corners:

http://grayrest.com/moz/evangelism/tutorials/dominspectortutorial.shtml

should we avoid these because they are non-standard? (the same way we 
should be avoiding IE-only stuff like scrollbar, filters, & marquee)

is there a reference for these somewhere?

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From: tarquin at planetunreal.com (tarquin)
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 10:47:05 +0100

> is there a reference for these somewhere?

found something:

http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/css/properties/extensions/nsextensions.htm
:-)

& started a page on the wiki

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From: liorean at f2o.org (liorean)
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 13:55:49 +0200

> http://grayrest.com/moz/evangelism/tutorials/dominspectortutorial.shtml

There are three reasons for vendor specific properties and values:
1. Implementing a not-yet-standard css property, such as css3 rounded
corners.
2. Allowin the specification of behaviors and handling in css for
behaviors that you can not for the momemnt achieve with your current
supported base of standards.
3. Adding new functionality that neither can be defined in other
technologies for the web or is upcoming in an upcoming new or updated
standard.

In moz, we see quite a few cases of 1 and some of 2. I suppose there
might be some 3 as well, but if so I don't know about it.
In op7, we see 2 alone, from what I can tell - if their "web
specifications supported in opera" page is correct.
In ie, we see mainly a bunch of 3 and a few 2.
In saf/konq, I have no idea what may or may not exist when it comes to
this, but I would think the engine is rather clean.

> should be avoiding IE-only stuff like scrollbar, filters, & marquee)

You should stay clearly away from 3.
You should consider avoiding 2.
I see no reason to stay away from 1.

You should use 1 in combination with the W3C upcoming if you wish to use
that feature.

> is there a reference for these somewhere?

Oh, they are spread over the vendors using them.
Opera:
<http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/css/properties/extensions/operaextensions.htm>
Opera 7: <http://www.opera.com/docs/specs/#xml-css-link>
Mozilla:
<http://unstable.elemental.com/mozilla/build/latest/mozilla/dom/dox/interfacensIDOMNSCSS2Properties.html>, 

<http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/css/properties/extensions/nsextensions.htm>
Microsoft:
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/css/reference/attributes.asp>

There are also a few that MSDN doesn't contain any documentation for,
like the expression(jsExpression) syntax. (It only contains
documentation for the getExpression, setExpression and removeExpression,
and this document is about the best I can find about expression():
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/overview/recalc.asp>)

-- 
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From: rijk at opera.com (Rijk van Geijtenbeek)
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 14:13:59 +0200

>> http://grayrest.com/moz/evangelism/tutorials/dominspectortutorial.shtml

This page looks fine (maybe a bit boxy) in Opera 7. No harm done, IMO.

> 2. Allowing the specification of behaviors and handling in css for
[..]
> You should use 1 in combination with the W3C upcoming if you wish to use

For both 1, 2 and 3 it is important that the page doesn't depend on the 
non-standard property to be useful and good looking. But even when they 
don't cause problems in other browsers, it is best to avoid such features 
if you want to build robust public pages. Even in category 1, the property 
might change a bit before it gets into the standard, and it might be also 
problematic when someone else has to take over the maintainance of a page.

-- 
 If you don't like having choices    |  Rijk van Geijtenbeek
 made for you, you should start      |   Documentation & QA
 making your own. -  Neal Stephenson |  mailto:[email-masked]

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From: moronicbajebus at yahoo.com (Seamus Leahy)
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 06:48:36 -0700 (PDT)

> what are your opinions on -moz CSS rules?

I think the -moz rules were created for effects in the
user interface of Mozilla because XUL (the Mozilla
interface) uses CSS. 

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From: chris at placenamehere.com (Chris Casciano)
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 12:13:50 -0400

> problematic when someone else has to take over the maintainance of a page.

I'd like reiterate the point about "change a bit" as there's nothing
stopping the VND in question not for changing the property at will.

I'll take the -moz- extensions as an example. Those that are there to
provide an implementation of the spec before its a recommendation are
expected to change. Because the spec may change there is no promise of a
direct translation from "-moz-property" to "property". When "property" gets
finalized and support is in the browser -moz-property and property may
actually conflict so if you think you're smart by sneaking "property" in
their for forward compatibility expect to have to edit your pages anyway
(although I don't know what the odds of this happening are).

There is no promise of backwards compatibility within the extension itself.
A real example this time:

There was once a time before bug 195883 where -moz-opacity would accept both
%age units and floating point values between 0 & 1. Well, we're now
post-195883 and %ages don't work anymore. Sucks to be anyone who
experimented with them in the past only to have long forgotten demos break
(me included).

-- 
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