Re: how to skip default css format lines in html output

[Gavin Smith]

> On 5/6/21 12:36 PM, Gavin Smith wrote:
> > On Sat, May 01, 2021 at 07:07:28PM -0700, Per Bothner wrote:
> >> It seems wrong to include inline css in generated html files,
> >> especially when using the --ccs-ref or -C INFO_JS_DIR options.
> >> The documentation is complicated. The advice to use !important
> >> to override the default style rules feels quite wrong-headed.
> >
> > Is this causing a practical problem?  Can you not override the
> > inline CSS with a referenced CSS file?
>
> Yes, I can override a specific rule.  However,
> it makes priority order of the various rules a bit fragile.
> It also makes it difficult to add to or edit the default rules
> as it may interact with user css rules in hard-to-anticipate ways.

Which rules are the ones which are causing problems? Can you be more
specific? There are not many default CSS rules - only about 15 of them
(I counted).

> Plus it clutters up the HTML with stuff thet doesn't belong there.
> If/when we add an option to generate xml/xhtml (as needed for epub)
> then the default rules will be inside an XML comment and hence
> ignored.  It seems fragile if the appearance of a document
> depends on whether it is html or xhtml.

The default CSS output is not really for the appearance but the
minimum needed to represent the intended meaning of some Texinfo
constructs in HTML output.

> > I don't know where the advice to use !important comes from
> > as I couldn't find this in the manual anywhere.
>
> Search for '! important' (with a space after the '!') in
> http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_node/HTML-CSS.html

I see, thanks. I never read all of that; as you say, it is quite
complicated. I don't know what the thinking is here behind the special
processing of @import directives by texi2any. I assume it is for some
CSS standard or to allow some types of customization.