Style Sheets Guide
=Inheritance=
= Index DOT Html by Brian Wilson
[bloo@blooberry.com] =
Inheritance
If a particular property is not explicitly specified for an element, what
characteristics should the element have? For assigning properties to multiple
tag sections, it could be redundant and time consuming having to re-state
the same properties for multiple sections and levels of a document. The size
of the style sheet information would quickly become unwieldy. This is why each
style sheet property has rules for inheritance of property values which reduce
redundant property statements.
The Tree Analogy
The hierarchy of all tag structures contained in the Body of an HTML document
is analogous to a tree structure. At the upper-most level is the BODY tag. The
Block, Character, and similar formatting elements within the Body will compose the
branches of the first level of this tree. Further, any tags nested within these
structures will comprise yet lower levels of the tree.
if property characteristics are not specified for lower level "branch"
tags in this tree analogy are allowed to inherit some of these from elements closer
to the base (BODY tag) of the tree. The
inheritance rules are not always the same for each property, so please see the
Style Sheet Property Reference Guide to find a
breakdown of inheritance characteristics.
Advantages of Inheritance:
- Saves redundancy of typing by allowing global properties to be set.
- An author can create default properties for large sections and list
only the exceptions, instead of having to set style properties everywhere.
Boring Copyright Stuff....