Re: [CSS21] 17.4: properties on outer & inner table boxes

On 05/11/2010 07:51, Peter Moulder wrote:
> In previous versions of CSS2.1, the outer table box was anonymous and the
> (inner) table box was considered the principal box generated by the table.

> Whereas in the Oct2010 editors' draft, the outer table box is the principal box

> I believe we need to be explicit that the table box associated with an
> inline-table element is not "an inline-table".  Whether it's an inline-table
> affects zindex.html, for example.  When describing what properties the table
> box gets, I suggest explicitly stating that its 'display' property has value
> 'table'.

> [The technical reason that this is an underspecification bug is that although
>   §17.4 does say that the table box is block-level, the current version of
>   §9.2.2 still has the sometimes/always problem such that being block-level
>   isn't enough to imply that its 'display' value isn't 'inline-table' or
>   'inline'.]

I don't think this is an issue since, as I understand it, the table box 
doesn't have a 'display' property.  The value of the 'display' property 
of an element determines (sometimes in conjunction with other 
information) the types of boxes that the element generates.  The boxes 
themselves don't necessarily correspond exactly to the values of the 
'display' property.  A table box is outwardly block-level and inwardly 
table, for example.

When the spec sloppily refers to blocks, inline blocks, inline tables, 
tables, list items etc in a context where it's really talking about 
boxes, the only sensible assumption is that it's referring to the 
principal box of the element of that type, so the issue above doesn't 
arise.  Of course, principal box is defined in generality either, but is 
defined enough to exist for table and inline table elements.

I guess what I'm saying is that this area is sloppy, but I don't think 
there's any unique difficulty with the case that you describe.  Of 
course, I'd like to see the spec fixed in full generality....

Cheers,
Anton Prowse
http://dev.moonhenge.net

Received on Saturday, 6 November 2010 20:38:26 UTC