netsurf/Docs/03-css
James Bursa c88b268f84 Split documentation into files by topic and convert to AsciiDoc format.
svn path=/trunk/netsurf/; revision=2975
2006-10-02 21:58:33 +00:00

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CSS parser
==========
CSS is tokenised by a re2c-generated scanner (scanner.l), and then parsed into a
memory representation by a lemon-generated parser (parser.y, ruleset.c).
Styles are retrieved using css_get_style(). They can be cascaded by
css_cascade().
Implementing a new CSS property
-------------------------------
In this section I go through adding a CSS property to NetSurf, using the
'white-space' property as an example. -- James Bursa
First read and understand the description of the property in the CSS
specification (I have worked from CSS 2, but now 2.1 is probably better).
Add the property to css_enums. This file is used to generate css_enum.h and
css_enum.c:
css_white_space inherit normal nowrap pre
(I'm not doing pre-wrap and pre-line for now.)
Add fields to struct css_style to represent the property:
css_white_space white_space;
Add a parser function for the property to ruleset.c. Declare a new function:
static void parse_white_space(struct css_style * const s, const struct css_node * const v);
and add it to property_table:
{ "white-space", parse_white_space },
This will cause the function to be called when the parser comes to a rule giving
a value for white-space. The function is passed a linked list of struct
::css_node, each of which corresponds to a token in the CSS source, and must
update s to correspond to that rule. For white-space, the implementation is
simply:
void parse_white_space(struct css_style * const s, const struct css_node * const v)
{
css_white_space z;
if (v->type != CSS_NODE_IDENT || v->next != 0)
return;
z = css_white_space_parse(v->data, v->data_length);
if (z != CSS_WHITE_SPACE_UNKNOWN)
s->white_space = z;
}
First we check that the value consists of exactly one identifier, as described
in the specification. If it is not, we ignore it, since it may be some future
CSS. The css_white_space_parse() function is generated in css_enum.c, and
converts a string giving a value to a constant. If the conversion succeeds, the
style s is updated.
Add defaults for the style to css_base_style, css_empty_style, and
css_blank_style in css.c. The value in css_base_style should be the one given as
'Initial' in the spec, and the value in css_empty_style should be inherit. If
'Inherited' is yes in the spec, the value in css_blank_style should be inherit,
otherwise it should be the one given as 'Initial'. Thus for white-space, which
has "Initial: normal, Inherited: yes" in the spec, we use CSS_WHITE_SPACE_NORMAL
in css_base_style and CSS_WHITE_SPACE_INHERIT in the other two.
Edit css_cascade() and css_merge() in css.c to handle the property. In both
cases for white-space this looks like:
if (apply->white_space != CSS_WHITE_SPACE_INHERIT)
style->white_space = apply->white_space;
Add the property to css_dump_style() (not essential).
Now the box, layout and / or redraw code needs to be changed to use the new
style property. This varies much more depending on the property.
For white-space, convert_xml_to_box() was changed to split text at newlines if
white-space was pre, and to replace spaces with hard spaces for nowrap.
Additionally, calculate_inline_container_widths() was changed to give the
appropriate minimum width for pre and nowrap.