I have long wanted to be able to include one style class within another. For example
med-font {
font-size:12px;
}
#message a {
style: med-font;
color: blue;
...
}
/* lots of other styles, some of which use med-font */
Obviously this is a stripped down example, but the key point is that all those anchor tags within #message shouldn't need explicit classes or ids. For now I either duplicate the font-size in each class that needs it or add classes to things that wouldn't otherwise require it. And since I want to easily control the font-size from one place, I usually start adding classes.
Another solution is to split up the definition of "#message a" in this example (below). This works ok for small projects, but for larger projects this is actually my least favoured solution. It makes site maintenance very difficult if you have many classes split apart and scattered around large style files.
med-font, #message a {
font-size:12px;
}
#message a {
color: blue;
...
}
So my question is two parts: 1. Does this annoy other people? 2. Does anyone know if this feature is/was being considered for CSS3?
Edit: Adding example of html body and more details...
The main point is that adding a class attribute to the 20 anchors below to set their font size is tedious.
<div id="username" class="med-font">schickb</div>
<div id="message">
<div id="part1">
<a href="whatever">text</a>
<!--lots more tags and say 6 anchors -->
</div>
<div id="part2">
<a href="foo">text</a>
<!--lots more tags and say 8 anchors -->
</div>
</div>
<div id="footer"> <!-- footer anchors should be a smaller font-size -->
<a href="boo">lala</a>
<p class="med-font">Company Name</p>
<!-- other tags and 3 more anchors -->
</div>
Remember, an important goal is to have one place where "med-font" is declared so that it is easy to adjust. In my actual project, there are small, medium, and large font styles. I only want one declaration for each so that I don't have to search through the css to say change 12px to 11px.
The best solution currently is to add the "med-font" class to all the anchors in the body, and the "small-font" class to all the anchors in the footer. But I'd much rather do what I showed originally, and simply include the desired font in the styles for "#message a" and "#footer a".
Summary: I want CSS to be more DRY