Re: flowing around both sides of a float

On Jan 5, 2008, at 8:56 PM, Brad Kemper wrote:
>
>> It rises many questions as you may see. Some of them:
>>
>> 1) what exactly is text-align: right or center for text flowing  
>> around such elements?
>> 2) how rtl is handled in such contexts?
>> 3) Centered paragraph (last one on the screen shot above), how you  
>> would expect
>>   float:free element to be positioned? In other words: how  
>> float:free elements interact with
>>   float:left/right ones?
>
> The one with text-align:left on the field text looks good. But on  
> the other two, I think the text should snug up to the float better.  
> For instance, when the field text is text-align:right, you should  
> fit as much text as will fit in each line to the right of the float  
> before adding it to the left. It looks like at least the "1 2" in  
> the first line of that one should move to the right, for instance.  
> maybe that's the hard part? To figure out how much of the text  
> needs to be to the right before you figure out what remainder  
> should be on the left (in LTR writing)?

I haven't looked at Andrew's examples recently. (Sorry Andrew) But I  
did look at them the last time he posted them. I wondered how we  
would specify text-align for each side of the 'floated' element?

In the most complex case -- floated center -- does 'text-align:  
left;' apply only to the beginning of the line, or does it apply to  
the beginning of the line as well as after the floated element? And  
does 'text-align: justified;' make straight edges only at the ends of  
the line or does it make the borders next to the center-floated  
element straight as well?

I expect the implementation of this feature will be easier than  
getting agreement on exactly what options are needed and what each of  
these options mean.

>
> For the third example, with center aligned field text, I would  
> expect the text to the left of the free float to be flush right  
> against the margin of the float, and the text to the right of the  
> free float to be flush left against the floats other margin. That  
> way, all the field text would look like it is part of the same  
> paragraph, with the ragged edges only where they needed to be for  
> you to perceive the whole block as centered text.
>
> The float left seems logical the way it is working there. Not that  
> it is a pretty design, but it seems to do what I would expect it to  
> do.


James Elmore

Received on Sunday, 6 January 2008 06:46:08 UTC