Re: [css3-multicol] overflow and paging?

On 10/11/2010 10:55 AM, Shelby Moore wrote:
>
> The problem is that that I expect the columns in pane(1) to be paginated
> to the height of pane(1), so there will be page breaks __WITHIN__ pane(1).
> There are no page breaks for the viewport, because the panes(1) and (2)
> never are taller than the viewport.  I have no way to make the inline
> content less tall, because the border between pane(1) and pane(2), is
> draggable by the user.
>
> In other words, I expect the following in pane(1) where my inline content
> is in alphabetical order:
>

Rendering A
> -------------
> |           |
> -------------
> |A D|       |
> |B E|   2   |
> |C F|       |
> -------------
>  G J
>  H K
>  I L
>
>  M P
>  N Q
>  O R
>
> But instead now I erroneously see:

Rendering B
> -------------
> |           |
> -------------
> |A J|       |
> |B K|   2   |
> |C L|       |
> -------------
>  D M
>  E N
>  F O
>  G P
>  H Q
>  I R

If you constrain the height of the multicol element, you should instead see
Rendering C
---------------
|             |
---------------
|A D|G J M P  |
|B E|H K N Q  |
|C F|I L O R  |
---------------
where the columns overflowing to the right can be clipped or scrolled
depending on 'overflow'.

You get Rendering B if you do not constrain the height of the multicol
element.

You can get Rendering A only if we add a new property, 'column-length',
as described in the minutes from the Oct 2008 F2F;
   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2008Nov/0023.html

Rendering A is somewhat awkward in a scrolled presentation; *therefore*
there was a suggestion for "overflow-style: paged".

Both 'column-length' and 'overflow-style: paged' were deferred to
future specs at the Oct 2008 F2F.

Probably CSS4 Multi-col will have 'column-length', and some as-yet-
undetermined spec will have 'overflow-style: paged'. ('column-length'
would be very easy to specify; 'overflow-style: paged', however,
seems not as straightforward.)

~fantasai

Received on Wednesday, 20 October 2010 23:49:37 UTC