[css3-layout] Proposal for CSS Layout Addition

Hello,

We have been reading the draft for the CSS3 Advanced Layout Module and the comments on this mailing list. 

We agree with David Baron that techniques such as 'sliding doors' and other work-arounds for current implementations are making web page design more complex than necessary.

After reading the draft for the CSS3 Advanced Layout Module, like David, we started thinking about how widgets are being laid out using user interface toolkits. We think, however, that although these toolkits are very powerful in software design, they are not intuitive to web designers, who are more used to grid-like approaches. 

Therefore we started to consider a flexible, grid-like placement of main blocks - a concept web designers are familiar with - but one that at the same allows for web pages to adapt well to different resolutions/font sizes. 

We also agree with the syntax concerns Bill Birchenough mentions but we would like to propose to take this a step further. 

We have come up with a proposal (http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wim/consultancy/papers/CSS3layout/) which in many respects is similar to the current draft. Our aim has been to provide a syntax and semantics which would be as intuitive to web designers as possible, while being compatible with the current draft and extensible to support multiple document formats. The proposed syntax still adheres to the formal CSS syntax.

Your thoughts on this proposal would be very welcome.

Kind regards,

Catherine

http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wim/consultancy/papers/CSS3layout/: Proposal for a CSS3 Layout Addition, C. Brys, R. Cooper, W. Vanderbauwhede


Dr. Catherine M. Brys - PhD Eng
Library Web Services Co-Ordinator
- Library Web Site Accessibility and Usability Project - 
Glasgow University Library, Hillhead Street, Glasgow, G12 8QE, Scotland, UK
e: c.brys [at] lib.gla.ac.uk
t: +44 (0)141 330 6748
w: www.lib.gla.ac.uk/accessible

Dr. Wim Vanderbauwhede
EPSRC Advanced Research Fellow
Department of Computing Science
University of Glasgow
17 Lilybank Gardens
G12 8QQ
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wim