Values, Units, and Colors - Values, Units, and Colors - page 4

"This is the right place \
for a newline."
"This is the right place for a newline."
If, on the other hand, you actually want a string value that includes a newline character,
then use the Unicode reference \A where you want the newline to occur.
"This is a better place \Afor a newline."
URLs
If you've written web pages, you're obviously familiar with URLs (or, as in CSS2.1,
URIs). Whenever you need to refer to one—as in the @import statement, which is used
when importing an external style sheet—the general format is:
url(protocol:// server / pathname )
This example defines what is known as an absolute URL . By absolute, I mean a URL
that will work no matter where (or rather, in what page) it's found, because it defines
an absolute location in web space. Let's say that you have a server called web.waffles.org
( http://web.waffles.org ). On that server, there is a directory called pix , and in this di-
rectory is an image waffle22.gif . In this case, the absolute URL of that image would be:
http://web.waffles.org/pix/waffle22.gif
This URL is valid no matter where it is found, whether the page that contains it is
located on the server web.waffles.org or web.pancakes.com .
The other type of URL is a relative URL , so named because it specifies a location that
is relative to the document that uses it. If you're referring to a relative location, such as
a file in the same directory as your web page, then the general format is:
url( pathname )
This works only if the image is on the same server as the page that contains the URL.
For argument's sake, assume that you have a web page located at http://web.waffles.org/
syrup.html and that you want the image waffle22.gif to appear on this page. In that
case, the URL would be:
pix/waffle22.gif
This path works because the web browser knows that it should start with the place it
found the web document and then add the relative URL. In this case, the pathname
pix/waffle22.gif added to the server name http://web.waffles.org equals http://web.waf
fles.org/pix/waffle22.gif . You can almost always use an absolute URL in place of a rel-
ative URL; it doesn't matter which you use, as long as it defines a valid location.
In CSS, relative URLs are relative to the style sheet itself, not to the HTML document
that uses the style sheet. For example, you may have an external style sheet that imports
another style sheet. If you use a relative URL to import the second style sheet, it must
be relative to the first style sheet.