Re: [css3-multicol] The purpose of multi-column layout?

And although it's not the Web, the iBooks application for iPad:

It's definitely useful for e-reader applications.

dave
(hyatt@apple.com)

On May 25, 2010, at 4:27 PM, Håkon Wium Lie wrote:

> Also sprach Andrew Fedoniouk:
> 
>> Simple question: what is the purpose of Multi-column Layout Module 
>> http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-multicol/ ? What problems it is trying to solve?
> 
> It avoids too long lines, and it avoids wasting formatting real estate.
> 
> Here are some examples where multicol layouts avoid long lines:
> 
>  http://www.princexml.com/samples/#wiki
>  http://www.princexml.com/howcome/2008/wikipedia/united-states.pdf
>  http://www.princexml.com/howcome/2008/wikipedia/norway.pdf
>  http://www.princexml.com/howcome/2008/wikipedia/s2.pdf
> 
> These are all PDF documents, but CSS should be able to handle
> print/archive as well, and the same issues will appear on wide
> screens.
> 
> Here are two examples from Wikipedia that uses multi-column layout to
> save real estate:
> 
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hordaland
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counties_of_Norway
> 
> That is, long lists with short entries are flowed into multi-column
> layouts. What starts out as multi-column markup/styling in the
> Wikipedia source code is currently turned into HTML tables for the
> benefit of browsers that do not support multi-column layouts. When
> browsers support multi-column layouts, it will be natural to use CSS
> for this. By, e.g., setting:
> 
>  ul { columns: 15em }
> 
> the list may be a single column on a small screen and three columns on
> a wider screen. Elegant, no?
> 
> Finally, it should be noted that multicolumn layout on for the wen is
> not an idea from the CSS WG -- Netscape 3 had it:
> 
>  http://www.eskimo.com/~bloo/indexdot/html/tagpages/m/multicol.htm
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> -h&kon
>              Håkon Wium Lie                          CTO °þe®ª
> howcome@opera.com                  http://people.opera.com/howcome
>