[cssom] getComputedStyle and/or computedStyleMap to return authored value

[NickGard]

Hello, I'm an engineer at Webflow, a tool that helps users build websites without having to know all of the CSS/HTML/JS that goes into it. I'm working on part of the tool that checks for accessibility issues and a problem I've run into recently is that I can't get the authored styles for font-size using either getComputedStyle or computedStyleMap. I'd like to know that the user hasn't set the font-size for an element in px units, or that they're at least partially set with rem units, like calc(2vw + 0.5rem). When I use the CSSOM APIs to check the style, I only get the resolved size in px units.

Is there any way to change this to report the user-authored value? Or can we create another API to do that, like getAuthoredStyle?

[Loirooriol]

Lengths are absolutized at computed value time, so you want the specified value.

[bramus]

This becomes a need when creating developer tooling, something I ran into before myself: bramus/scroll-driven-animations-debugger-extension#17

So that’s a +1 from me :)

This would require a new API like Oriol said. Something like getSpecifiedStyle(Element elt, optional CSSOMString? pseudoElt) perhaps?

[NickGard]

Lengths are absolutized at computed value time, so you want the specified value.

Yes, that's exactly it! As far as I can tell, the CSSOM offers no API to retrieve this value. I've seen CSS polyfills that parse style tags and linked style files, but they don't account for inlined styles or styles set via DOM APIs. Since the browser has already done the work of parsing and resolving specification, it would be helpful to have access to the applied specified value.

[NickGard]

getSpecifiedStyle(Element elt, optional CSSOMString? pseudoElt)

Would (or should) this also encompass pseudo states? I could imagine wanting to know the specified styles for hover and there's no way to trigger that state that I'm aware of. Focus, valid, invalid, disabled and most other states could be triggered programmatically but that might not be desired, since that would involve a change to the DOM.

[bramus]

The second argument is pseudo-element, not pseudo-class (or state). This similar to getComputedStyle that also has this.

[frivoal]

While not being an expert in the matter, I remember this class of problem being discussed at length in the CSSWG in the past, and this being quite the rabit hole of complexity. @therealglazou would know much more…

[bramus]

Do you recall the rabbit hole Florian is talking about here, @therealglazou?

[therealglazou]

hey @frivoal ! (I'm missing a bit the good ol'CSS days)

Sooooo... This opens a can of worms, guys, and this is exactly the kind of things I needed (and had to implement by myself because rendering engines don't offer such API) in BlueGriffon.

In short, getting the specified value is very far from enough. Suppose the specified value is a calc() calling user-defined properties (aka variables) or for instance a color gradient. You do NOT want to parse that by yourself, you want a parsed version of the specified value. In most cases, the unparsed specified value is of no use at all or, to be more precise, the probability you'll make errors re-implementing value parsing if you get the string only is high.

Suppose you succeed and you finally get that specified value and you get it parsed. If you're building any kind of content editor, what you also want to know is if that value specification can be overridden, what other values it overrides, etc. In summary, accessing the winner of the Cascade is not enough, you also want to access the whole Cascade.

But wait. If you access the whole Cascade and all declarations applying to a given element, you want to have a parsed version of selectors too. Because if you happen to have to create a new selector, you absolutely need to know what's going to be the effect on existing declarations.

All in all, editing capabilities inside a browser require either to downgrade CSS to a subset of restricted selectors but then you can't edit any arbitrary Web page, or to implement a ton of stuff that are missing from CSSOM right now. Since CSSOM is very poorly extensible, you will eventually (like I did) write your own CSS parser and OM.

Hope that helps :-)

[bramus]

In short, getting the specified value is very far from enough.

I’m not sure I agree with this premise. For the use-cases I am thinking of, getting the specified value is sufficient:

• I want to know that it was 90vh instead of the resulting 1234px
• I want to know that the specified value was var(--color) instead of rgb(0, 128, 0)
• I want to know that it was calc(100% - 100% + 10px) that was used instead of 10px (or the intermediary calc(0% + 10px))

The further processing of the specified value can be offloaded to another future API or a userland library. E.g. for calc() specifically the simplification process is well described so you’d be able to get that calc(0% + 10px) value.

[andruud]

I am actually not sure we want to expose this information at all. CSSOM revealing too much about what's going on inside can be harmful to future development of CSS, and make it impossible to ship certain changes safely. (E.g. #8398)

[ydaniv]

We actually had such API in WebKit window.getMatchedCSSRule(), which was deprecated in 2014 and removed later.
I even created a Gecko polyfill for that 12 years ago.
I suppose it''s something that was done with a strong intent.

[bramus]

We actually had such API in WebKit window.getMatchedCSSRule(), which was deprecated in 2014 and removed later.

TIL.

Note that the feature requested here – or at least in my interpretation / see examples – is more limited than getMatchedCSSRule(). It’s limited to getting only the specified value of a property, not to get all the rules that target the element.

[ydaniv]

Note that the feature requested here – or at least in my interpretation / see examples – is more limited than getMatchedCSSRule(). It’s limited to getting only the specified value of a property, not to get all the rules that target the element.

I see. That is indeed simpler.
I can definitely see use-cases for that for tools, but we definitely need the input here from the folks who were here during the deprecation of the aforementioned endpoint.

[Kilian]

As someone else working on CSS introspection tools I would very much like a tool like this (specifiedStyleMap?). As the original post mentioned, a lot of this is hamstrung by the disconnect between the computed and authored/specified styles.

As CSS gets more complex with scopes, layers and nesting it also becomes more and more intensive to determine these values by parsing all CSSStyleRules in user space (which is also where #10470 comes from)

[TrySound]

Something like specifiedStyleMap would greatly simplify importing html with css into website builders like Webstudio. At the moment we are planning to use computedStyleMap though resolved css variables will reduce styles authoring experience for our users.