Re: Publishing the flexible box model

L. David Baron wrote:
> On Monday 2008-06-09 19:23 -0700, Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:
>> That is defined in HTML tables already:
>> http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/tables.html#h-11.2.4.4
>> (See Proportional specifications there)
> 
> Sorry, but that was written by somebody who doesn't understand how
> HTML table width calculation works.  It's poorly defined enough that
> I removed support for it from Mozilla (which I believe was the only
> browser to support it).  (And the way percentages on tables work is
> really halfway between what's described in the spec as percentage
> and what's described in the spec as proportional, since they are
> relative to the actual size of the table, not the space available
> for it.  And percentages will even flex to other amounts when all
> columns have percentage widths.)

Table layout algorithm, indeed, could be defined better.
But I see no problems with flex units by themselves.
They peacefully coexist with other non-flex units.

I believe that was a strategic mistake when percents in tables
were made to behave as flexes.

> 
> It also only defines behavior for widths, and not for margins or
> heights.

Historically html has a model of endless tape.
Limited in horizontal direction but unlimited in vertical direction.
No limits - no context for flex units computation. It was simply
impossible to define flexes for table heights.

CSS has concept of view height so vertical flexes can be added
here.

> 
> It also doesn't define the effect of those proportional units on
> intrinsic width calculation, what their priority is relative to
> other specifications (since the column's width can be specified on
> the column or on any cell), or how they work when column-spanning
> cells are present.  (And I'm not saying that's an exhaustive list of
> what's missing; it's just what I can think of right now.)

Table layout algorithm is pretty simple in fact if to think in terms
of flexes. Wondered at the beginning why it was so poorly defined.

-- 
Andrew Fedoniouk.

http://terrainformatica.com

Received on Tuesday, 10 June 2008 04:56:21 UTC