Re: [Backgrounds/Borders] Suggestion: Remove background-break and border-break

On Mar 25, 2009, at 6:29 PM, Robert O'Callahan wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 6:12 AM, David Hyatt <hyatt@apple.com> wrote:
> I can't really think of any valid use cases for which bounding-box  
> and each-box would be interesting.
>
> I think border-break:close is clearly useful. I suspect that it's  
> what authors would expect for blocks with borders breaking across  
> page or column boundaries.
>
> Rob
> -- 

I agree. Similarly, if you have a background that is supposed to align  
with the top, bottom, or middle of the box, then it seems likely that  
you would want it to break in the same fashion as border-break. That  
is, if there are two border-tops and two border-bottoms for each  
element because of a page break, then the backgrounds should similarly  
be repeated on both pages. But if the border breaking policy is to  
treat it as one box that's been sliced in two, then it should work the  
same way for backgrounds.

It does seem to me that border-break and background-break should be  
the same property. Thus, if border-break is "none", then background- 
break should be "each box", otherwise should be "continuous". Then  
again, I don't really understand the difference between "continuous"  
and "bounding-box" (I don't think it is explained very clearly). Is  
"bounding-box" really needed, or just for edge cases, or should it  
replace "continuous"? It seems like it is trying to do something  
special when there are varying page widths, but it is something  
nothing else about the box does.

By the way, what happens if I specify 'border-break:close', then give  
my element 12-inch bottom-padding, and print it out on 11-inch high  
paper? Does smoke start billowing out of the sides of my computer? Or  
does it print an infinite number of sheets of paper as it tries to  
insert the padding onto each page?