CSS2 Specification Plan

We will base the CSS2 specification on the HTML 4.0 specification in several ways:

The structures will be similar (see below)
Much of the information will be generated from markup (indexes, links to property definitions from the text, table of contents, subtables of contents for each chapter, etc.) Ian will work with Arnaud to adapt the HTML 4.0 binaries and makefiles to CSS2.

The CSS2 specification will be written in some "clean" version of HTML 4.0. Style sheets for the spec will be linked via the LINK element.

What's in CSS2?

CSS2 will be created by integrating the following documents or later versions of them:

Here's a preliminary proposal for the tables of contents. The lines with asterisks are notes from discussions. Entries in square brackets are optional sections to be discussed further. Entries in curly brackets will be generated from source markup.

Please comment on missing pieces.

Cover Page
   Abstract
   Status
   Link to Issues List (until publicly released)
   Editors (Bert/Håykon/Chris/Ian)
   Comments to the editors
   {Table of Contents}

About the CSS2 Specification
   Structure of the specification
      * Properties defined where appropriate
      * May be read from beginning to end
      * Information accessible quickly from TOC, indexes, 
        links within the doc to property definitions, etc.
   Acknowledgments

Introduction to CSS2
   A brief CSS2 tutorial
     * Style Sheets
     * (See the beginning of the CSS1 draft)
     * CSS and HTML/HTTP (e.g., text/css)
     * Link to sample style sheet in appendix
   Design principles of CSS2
     * Impact of Web design on CSS2
     * Modularity 
     * Justification of syntax
     * Forward compatibility
     * Simple values
     * Define scope of CSS2

Definitions and Conventions
   Definitions
   Conventions of the spec

Syntax and data types of CSS2
   Rules    (Selectors (and groups) 
             Declarations (and groups))
   @-rules (import, page, font-face, media)
   Basic Data types
     keywords, strings, numbers, units
     list, percentage, length, color, url
   Comments (CSS2 and SGML)
   
Concepts
   Document Trees
      * White space
      * Inheritance
   Selectors
      * CSS and HTML
   Cascade
      * !Important rule
      * Precedence rules
   Media Types
      Screen
      Page
      Aural
          * Voice families
          * Spatial audio
      Braille
   Flow objects: Float, display, and position properties
      * list, block, inline
      * replaced elements
      * filters
   Colors
      * Device independent color concepts
      * Point to implementation-dependent colors
   Fonts
      * Font database
      * Font encoding (from CSS1/Appendix C)
      * Font sets (from CSS1/Appendix C)
   Text and Synthesized text
   Box Model, Lists, Tables, and Columns
   User interface
      * Cursors

Conformance
  * What does CSS2 conformance mean? 
  * Forward compatible parsing

References

Indexes
  {Concept index}
  {Property index}

Appendixes
  Sample Style Sheet
  Changes between CSS1 and CSS2
  Performance and Implementation Notes
     Colors
        * SRGB, Gamma (see CSS1/Appendix C)
  Grammar of CSS2
  [CSS2 and other style sheet languages]

This table of contents may vary if documents become too large or if they naturally combine, etc.

The implementation of the spec

The source files of the specification will be located in the following CVS module: WWW/Style/Group/css2-src.

This module will contain the following subdirectories:

DOC Contains documents for editors:
- README: How to create the electronic and printed versions of the spec and how to install it in the public space of the Web site. The Makefile in the toplevel directory will specify how the spec is created.
- CONVENTIONS: Conventions adopted by the editors of the spec (e.g., quotes around property names, markup to use for generated links, etc.
- FILES: The list of files that compose the specification. This list will be used by the process that generates the final spec in all its forms.
bin Contains scripts and programs to build the spec from source files.
build Contains files (indexes, headers, etc.) generated to build the spec.
images Contains image files
style Contains style sheets associated with the spec.

All other source files, having the suffix ".srb", will be located in the toplevel directory. These files will contain HTML 4.0 plus any macros (to be defined) that may generate HTML during processing).

Milestones

First draft for CSS WG: August 20
Recommendation: mid-December