RE: Pixels 'n points (CSS1 browser test)

> Douglas Rand [SMTP:drand@sgi.com] wrote:
>> both browsers-- different things for each browser, of course-- but I
think
>> *correct* support for float on all elements would be a huge step.
>> Navigator at least supports float, but breaks when you start
associating
>
>It really isn't that difficult,  I do it in our browser.  The code
which
>builds the rendering structure checks for displayFLOAT for inline or
>block elements (my internal value for the property) and sticks the
>content in a floater container.  It's relatively simple and few lines
of
>code,  et voila,  I can put a paragraph off to the left (and I did for
>my public demo at SGI's developer's forum).  Every capable browser
>already does such things for IMG and TABLE replaced elements.

True; but we can't alter the document structure like that, because we
need to be able to persist.  (The HTML rendering engine in IE4 is also
an authoring system - e.g. it's used by Outlook Express, the email
client in IE4.)

>I have other complaints,  like N4's lack of support for the anchor
>pseudoclasses.

? I was under the impression they supported the :link and :visited
pseudoclasses.  Mind you, I think they do skip :active...

>I told a Netscape person (not to be named) about my
>support for changing geometry on anchor activation and the person was
>horrified,  even though the spec. is *not* ambiguous over this.

I had a similar experience with Netscape.  You're right, the spec is not
ambiguous - it says you don't have to implement this.  Section 2.1,
paragraph three: "A UA is not required to reformat a currently displayed
document due to anchor pseudo-class transitions.  E.g., a style sheet
can legally specify that the 'font-size' of an 'active' link should be
larger that [sic] a 'visited' link, but the UA is not required to
dynamically reformat the document when the reader selects the 'visited'
link."

That said,  IE4 does in fact support this - did in Platform Preview 1,
if I recall properly.  A VERY cool effect. Obviously, dynamic (and
partial) reformats are no problem for us - they're the core of our
Dynamic HTML technology, allowing us to dynamically (and interactively)
change the content and presentation.

Whoa, </MODE TYPE=MARKETING>.  Sorry about that.

>I think some properties actually *are* problematic,  for example
>vertical-align applied to textual objects in paragraph flows really
make
>only modest sense.  The definition of vertical-align also doesn't
>correspond to common practice,  started with Mosaic,  of carrying the
>top and bottom text  limits for the line as the line is formatted from
>left to right.  Thus vertical-align can lead to circular dependencies, 
>which is not good, IMO.

I agree whole-heartedly with you on this one.

	-Chris
Chris Wilson
cwilso@microsoft.com
***

Received on Friday, 27 June 1997 14:20:10 UTC