[e4-dev] CSS Engine and CSS3 SAC Parser with FreeCC?

[Mathias Schäffner <mathias.schaeffner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I think it's a great idea having a new CSS Parser, so that we don't
depend on the Batik implementation anymore.
Would be easier to maintain it and to implement new features that we
would like to have because of some Eclipse projects that use a CSS
parser.

CSS3 is a great step forward.
But I'm more interested in some other features.

1. Correct handling of comments within a CSS file
2. Getting information (line and column number) where a rule or
property occurs in the file


> Hi,
>
> Today we have several SAC Parser implementation available (Batik, Flute,...).
> E4 CSS engine is today based on Batik SAC implementation, I think for IP reason.
>
> Problem is that SAC Parser implementation manage only CSS2, not CSS3.
> You can find CSS3 features at http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/
>
> Why CSS3? Because it gives some features like :
>
> * nth-child : which is very interesting to set CSS  style into row of SWT Table (eg : set a color to a particulary row like set blue color on odd row and set red color even row). Ex :
>
> TableItem:nth-child(odd) {
>    color:blue;
> }
>
>
> TableItem:nth-child(even) {
>    color:red;
> }
>
> * use namespace to disting CSS style for SWT Label and Custom Label. Ex :
>
> @namespace custom "com.mycompany.widgets"
>
> Label {
>    color:red;
> }
>
> custom|Label {
>    color:blue;
> }
>
>
> With CSS2 SAC Parser, we cannot manage thoses cases. I think it's shame.
> So I think it's time to think about CSS3 SAC Parser implementation.
>
> I don't know if Batik is interesting to support CSS3 SAC Parser, but I know that Jonathan Revusky, one creator of famous Freemarker project is perhaps interesting to implement CSS3 SAC Parser with her new project FreeCC which is Parser (it's a fork of JavaCC).
>
> What do you think about the idea to implement CSS3 SAC Parser with FreeCC?
>
> Regards Angelo