Re: Publishing the flexible box model

On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 7:03 PM, Andrew Fedoniouk <news@terrainformatica.com>
wrote:

> Robert O'Callahan wrote:
>
>> What does that have to do with absolute positioning and
>> http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/visudet.html#abs-non-replaced-width ?
>>
>
> There is nothing special with this in respect of flexes. Or I do not
> understand your question.
>
> You calculate positions of elements including flexes.
> After that you will have "would-be-position"s of absolute
> elements and you replace them accordingly to their left...bottom
> attributes.
>
> Is this what you were asking?


No. The rules in that section describe how to size and position an
absolutely positioned element based on the values of its margin, padding,
border and content size properties. Those rules do not consider flexunit
values. You need to explain how the rules are extended to handle flexunit
values. Are they just treated as auto?


>
>> A few more questions about flex-units:
>>
>> Does 'flow' apply to inline elements? If so, what does 'flow:vertical' do
>> on an inline element?
>>
>
> As I said flow is applicable only to elements that establish boxes - so to
> create bounds for flex length distribution. Inlines are clearly not such
> blocks.


That's confusing. In CSS all rendered elements create boxes. Your
explanation that 'flow' only applies to elements that are block-inside makes
more sense.


>
>> How do flexunits work on inline elements that break across multiple lines?
>> e.g
>> <span style="font-size:50px;">Foo</span> <span
>> style="padding-top:1*">A<br>B<br>C</span> <span
>> style="font-size:80px;">qux</span>
>> Which line box(es) are used to determine the padding? Does each line of
>> the <span> actually get a different padding?
>>
>
> Flex units are defined only for blocks and block-alike elements. display:
> block | inline-block | table | table-cell | etc.


Hang on, you just said that 'flow' only applies to elements with block
layout inside, so why does it make sense to apply flex units to table-cell?


> inline elements have no concept of dimension. In the same way
> as width:100px does not work for inline elements in the same
> way flex length units do not work there either.


But padding does work for inline elements, so one might expect flexunits
padding to work on them too. In fact here
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2008Jun/0043.html
I asked a question that assumed inline elements could have flex padding and
you agreed.


>
>> How do flexunits interact with absolute positioning and auto top/left? Is
>> the hypothetical position for the content computed taking flexunit
>> margins/padding on the content into account?
>>
>
> Yes.


I mean, given
<div style="flow:vertical; position:relative; height:200px; overflow:auto;">
Hello
<div style="margin:1*; position:absolute;"></div>
Kitty
</div>
The position of the inner div is computed "assuming it was in the flow"
according to CSS2.1. Does that mean you have to compute the space that would
be assigned to the flex margin if the inner div was in-flow?


> Here is a screenshot if you wish:
> http://terrainformatica.com/htmlayout/images/css-menus.png
>
> Nice example, but it doesn't illustrate my question since the abs-pos
element doesn't have flexunits on it.

By the way, you probably should have a close look at your decision to make
block descendants of an element with 'flow' all block formatting contexts.
That means that margin collapsing never happens across the boundaries of
these blocks, so the discussion we had earlier about margin-collapsing and
flex-units is moot. That's probably a good step but apparently that's not
what you've implemented. You probably should also work out more precisely
what you mean by that restriction to make it clear exactly which blocks are
affected and how.

I hope I've convinced you by now that there is a lot that a flexunits spec
needs to say, and what it should say is not all obvious.

Rob
-- 
"He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are
healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his
own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." [Isaiah
53:5-6]