Re: [CSS3] ::outside and table amnd/or ruby elements

> [Original Message]
> From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
>
> > Further reflection has caused me to consider that this could be
> > remedied by adding the following CSS:
> >   td::outside {display:table-cell}
> >   td {display: block}
> > to avoid generating the extra anonymous boxes, but it would be
> > a good idea to point out the problem and a potential solution
> > that works reasonably well for this case.
>
> Yes, I agree this should be mentioned, if it isn't already.
>
>
> > However, note that in solving the problem, I have side-stepped it,
> > as <td> is no longer a table-cell.
>
> You could also side-step it just with:
>
>    td::outside { display: table-cell; }
>
> ...without changing the inner <td> element's display. Since it is the only
> "child" of the ::outside pseudo-element, it will just have its own table.

Yes, but if the original table is using the separated table border model,
the anonymous table element that would be inserted between the
<td::outside> and the <td> could introduce additional spacing which
is bound to cause at the very least bug reports to be filed for behavior
that is correct according to the spec, because both 'border-collapse'
and 'border-spacing' are inherited properties.  To fix the problem
without changing the display of <td> requires more rules than simply
setting the display of <td> to block would entail.  Also, do you really
want a suggested solution that would cause a larger number of
anonymous boxes to be created?

However, consider other table elements such as <tbody> or <tr> that
can't be so simply handled by the manner I suggested for <td>.
Now the anonymous table that gets created will only use one cell in
the original table to hold the content of what was originally spread over
many cells in the original table.  I don't see how that could either
be fixed or be desirable, so effectively ::outside is at the very
least useless for table-row-groups and table-column-groups, and
of limited utility to table-rows and table-columns as one could give
their ::outsides the group value..

Received on Monday, 26 April 2004 21:58:24 UTC