RE: [css3-gridalign] Named cells, intuitive creation of page grids

Thanks David and Tab, this is great input!

-- MM

-----Original Message-----
From: www-style-request@w3.org [mailto:www-style-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of David Hyatt
Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 1:16 PM
To: Tab Atkins Jr.
Cc: www-style list
Subject: Re: [css3-gridalign] Named cells, intuitive creation of page grids

On Nov 2, 2010, at 4:51 AM, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:

> One of the most powerful parts of Template Layout was, in my opinion, 
> the ascii-art template that allowed the author to immediately *see* 
> what the page's layout would look like.  It was extremely intuitive 
> and simple, though it did tend to trigger a bit of backlash at first 
> sight, particularly from programmer types.  Most people warmed up to 
> it as soon as they actually tried to use it, though.
> 
> I believe this is fundamentally compatible with Grid Alignment.  All 
> that the template has to do is create slot pseudoelements, and 
> position them within the grid.  This works great within Grid 
> Alignment, where grid rows/columns can be defined, but elements can be 
> positioned outside of the defined rows/columns without problem - it 
> just creates new columns and rows explicitly.
> 
> So, for example, one could draw out a relatively simple layout like so:
> 
> body {
>  grid-template: "abb"
>                 "acc"
>                 "d@e"
>                 "dff";
> }
> 
> This would automatically create a 4x3 grid and 7 ::slot() pseudos, 
> positioning them appropriately within the grid.
> 
> All of the rows and columns are "auto" length, though, which may be 
> suboptimal.  Using the other Grid Alignment properties, you can 
> provide more control here:
> 
> body {
>  grid-template: "abb"
>                 "acc"
>                 "d@e"
>                 "dff";
>  grid-rows: 50px 70px 1fr auto;
>  grid-columns: 200px 1fr min-content;
> }
> 
> You now have two choices for positioning.  You can either flow items 
> into the ::slot() pseudos, or you can position items using 
> grid-position.  The two don't conflict at all - either are potentially 
> useful.  You could even extend the grid further by positioning items 
> outside the 4x3 grid already defined; the effects of this are 
> well-defined and predictable from the Grid Alignment spec.

Yeah, I agree that it would be good to bring over named cells.

In addition I would love to see @page grid templates preserved as well.  That is another very powerful feature of CSS3 Template Layout that could be compatible with Grid Alignment.

dave

Received on Tuesday, 9 November 2010 17:23:39 UTC