Re: [CSS21] properties for table-column (In HTML: COL) & table-column-group (In HTML: COLGROUP) items.

On Wed, 29 Jun 2005 15:56:57 +0300, Orion Adrian <orion.adrian@gmail.com>  
wrote:

>
> On 6/29/05, Paul Duncan <paul.duncan@marketpipe.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>    -----Original Message-----
>>    From: Ian Hickson [mailto:ian@hixie.ch]
>>
>>    >The problem is that 'color' is an inherited property.
>>    >Inheritance is done before layout
>>    >it has to be, since the layout depends on inheritance).
>>
>> I cannot see how the 'color' of an element can in anyway affect the  
>> layout.
>>
>>    >You don't know what is a column until you've done the layout. To  
>> make
>>    >'color''s inheritance depend on the layout thus doesn't fit CSS's  
>> model.
>>
>>    > But nobody has yet given a solution that is easily implementable  
>> in the
>>
>>    > CSS model.
>>
>> Here's a simple solution?!?
>>
>> First pass all CSS aspects relating to layout are applied.
>> Then the layout is rendered
>> Then a second pass renders aspects relating to color and other  
>> non-layout
>> styles.
>>
>> Do I get a prize?
>
> I'll give you one, though there seems to be a lot of resistance to the
> idea of a two pass system, so I doubt it will be done. Perhaps they
> feel the system will have to redownload the files or something.
> .........

To the skeptical: let the UA's think about it. This is not even hard. The  
second pass would be done right after each element is laid out. The whole  
document tree is kept in memory anyway.

I agree CSS should be made more powerful as a layout tool, but we need not  
omit floats and clears. I recently had made a suggestion where the user  
could change the display order or even rearrange the parental  
relationships, create pseudo-parents etc., which also wouldn't break the  
progressive rendering (But the UA would just have to buffer and skip parts  
until it read the desired element, or simply do its progressive rendering  
(hmm, why not). While the idea of seperation of layout from content was  
backed up by some, it didn't get help for making the proposal up to the W3  
standards.

At all times, ppl choose to avoid the fact that where there are images in  
a document and floats, there is no such thing as progressive rendering  
without having to go back and relay the already laid out parts.

The UA's already have to deal with images pushing and pulling text around,  
and you know what, they can, and you know what, we can deal with it too.  
Images being loaded vastly changes layout. And giving image sizes is not  
always possible and feasible, because they can render the alt-tag  
unreadable. I still couldn't get an answer on this, but I guess this issue  
is not even considered an issue. Many nice proposals are being rejected on  
the 'progressive rendering' pretense. Sometimes too much idealism may  
cause us too ignore the facts.

-- 
Emrah BASKAYA
www.hesido.com

Received on Wednesday, 29 June 2005 13:26:10 UTC