Hi Colin, 

I'm super excited that you're super excited, and I was super-excited 
regardless; the feel-good meter is rising! :) 

The UI Options wireframes look good, I am glad to see that component is moving 
forward. 

In regards to FSS: 

1. Yes, I understand the need for the !important was for UI Options (from where 
FSS originated) where it's applied stylesheets needed to be guaranteed to "win" 
over whatever Wild West styling it was applied to. There is still a need for UI 
Options to be able to ensure its styling wins. I remember talking about some 
form of "registration" of UI Options with the host system, and perhaps varying 
levels of customization depending on the level of integration with the host 
system. Maybe UI Options registration can configure the css somewhat, or maybe 
!important statemtents are applied to FSS only when UI Options is in use? I 
would agree that FSS does not use !important in it's default state. 

2. This *is* an interesting one. And I should have been more clear. When the 
global :focus is declared by FSS, it works well in some interactions (like drag 
and drop) where a very obvious focus is needed, but has undesired results for 
other interactions, like putting focus on the tabs within a tab navigation bar, 
where another form of focus/hover is already being used, and the additional FSS 
focus over-emphasizes the element visually. It also resulted in a few 
visual-hiccups, depending on where the focus was. The problem really is that 
once :focus has been set globally, it cannot be returned to default browser 
behavior. The reaction we have gotten from accessibility-conscious institutions 
is a desire to have it behave "normally" and then have the focus behavior 
change/be more emphasized only in more targeted interactions (like drag and 
drop). So yes, I would agree that we not override the default in the reset, but 
rather provide more workable focus highlights and provide them as options. 

Gary 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Colin Clark" <[email protected]> 
To: "Gary Thompson" <[email protected]> 
Cc: [email protected] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 3:50:37 PM GMT -07:00 U.S. Mountain Time 
(Arizona) 
Subject: Re: Updates to FSS 

Hey Gary, 

We're all super excited that you're able to lend a hand with FSS, and it's such 
good timing! The main goal for Infusion 1.4, which we're starting on tomorrow, 
is to substantially improve both FSS and UI Options. 

James has posted his latest draft wireframes for UI Options on the wiki, in 
case you're curious: 

http://wiki.fluidproject.org/x/_YRTAQ 

Some further comments inline... 

On 2011-02-18, at 5:37 PM, Gary Thompson wrote: 

> 1. Use of !important statements makes overriding FSS declarations troublesome 
> (results in a requiring a lot of other !important declarations downstream). 
> The suggested fix is to remove all uses of !important and allow normal CSS 
> priority. 

My understanding is that many of the !importants in FSS were originally added 
for UI Options' sake. It was a quick hack at the time, ensuring that UI Options 
could successfully override critical styles on any page by simply swapping a 
few class names in the document. 

It was never a scalable solution, and I agree that we should remove all 
instances of !important in the FSS. While we're doing this work, let's 
coordinate it with the development of a new strategy in UI Options. Michelle 
and I have started to mull it over, but ideas and suggestions are very welcome. 

> 2. Declaration of a global :focus overrides the browser's defualt focus 
> behavior in an undesired manner. Unicon works primarily with higher-education 
> institutions for whom compliance with accessibility law is a big deal. This 
> particular global :focus override issue has come up as a negative with 
> several instiutions that want/need the defualt browser behavior. The 
> suggested fix is to remove the global :focus declaration. 

This is an interesting one. We added this default focus style specifically to 
improve accessibility. I think there are a few bugs in the implementation, 
however. The question is, do we want to remove this default altogether as you 
suggest, or come up with a bug-free and more subtle solution? 

One of the main principles of WCAG 2.0 is to ensure Web content is perceivable 
to a variety of users. I think our original concern was that the default focus 
styling of most browsers was too subtle to be noticeable in many cases. I'm 
thinking, for example, of when users focus each portlet in uPortal with the 
Reorderer. In such a busy UI, would the browser's default focus styling be 
sufficient to make it immediately apparent which portlet is currently focused? 
What are your thoughts on the issue? 

Perhaps the best solution is to provide a variety of workable focus highlights 
and include them as options in the FSS rather than in the base reset file? 

Other ideas/opinions? 

> As part of Unicon's uPortal Cooperative Development, UP-2921 has been voted 
> to priority and I have hours to work with Fluid to make these suggested 
> changes to FSS. Before I get started with making these changes in Github, I 
> wanted to see if anyone else has feedback or suggestions. 

Let us know how we can help, 

Colin 

--- 
Colin Clark 
Technical Lead, Fluid Project 
http://fluidproject.org 

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