Re: HTML block/inline != CSS block/inline (was Re: UL - Block or Inline?)

On Wed, 31 Jan 2001 11:59:34 -0800, "Tantek Celik"
<tantek@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:

>From: Dave  J Woolley <david.woolley@bts.co.uk>
>Date: Wed, Jan 31, 2001, 11:35 AM
[...]
>> <!ENTITY % list "UL | OL">
>> <!ENTITY % block
>> "P | %heading; | %list; | %preformatted; | DL | DIV | NOSCRIPT |
>>  BLOCKQUOTE | FORM | HR | TABLE | FIELDSET | ADDRESS">
>>
>>  [DJW:]  It's defnitely a block element.

[...]

>We really need a FAQ for this list, for this question/misunderstanding seems
>to come up perhaps every six months.

Gosh :) You think a six month interval for some question motivates a FAQ
entry? Please be welcome to ciwah or ciwas to find available FAQ-lists
posted twice a week, on top of being continuously available on the www
(and pointed to with a high frequency too) never to be read by those
that would really need them anyhow :)

>HTML block vs. inline

Ok, what about it...

> is not the same as CSS display:block, display:inline

some of us already knew that :)

>HTML's notion of block vs. inline is essentially that of containment rules.
>E.g. what elements can be nested inside what other elements.

You really could have formulated your self better on that part.

The "notation" of 'block' and 'inline' as defined entities in HTML, is
in fact an old thing that reflects an original idea of what should be
the "default" rendering (through the original virtual ua.css) of various
types of elements.

It has zilch to do with containment rules.

The ground of it all today is (should be) that markup defined in HTML
does not make it compulsory to render elements in the %block entity as
CSS "blocks" or elements in the %inline entity as CSS "inlines", but
that a CSS authour/user has a freedom to suggest a change to the initial
default.

>CSS's notion of block-level or inline-level display is purely
>layout/presentation related...

...and so was the original idea behind the creation of the %block and
%inline entities in HTML...

-- 
Jan Roland Eriksson <rex@css.nu> .. <URL:http://css.nu/>

Received on Wednesday, 31 January 2001 18:10:28 UTC