Re: [css3-regions] comments on regions module

Hi Alex,

>2) Does flow source have to be in same document? Documents that are as
>complicated as magazines probably have a complex workflow that involves
>multiple files and different people working on design and content.
>Wouldn¹t it be more scalable if the content could come from a file?
 
>E.g.
>    <iframe src="content.html" style="flow:into(content)"></iframe>
>or
>    <object data="content.html" style="flow:into(content)"></object>
 

We didn't think about using another file to flow content, because we
thought this issue is not really specific only to threading and regions.
It seems like developers use Ajax to include fragments of HTML in the same
context, maybe it is a good idea to have something like a <fragment>
element, but that's out of scope for this specification.


>3) Can there be multiple sources?
>What happens if multiple elements have ³flow:into(content)²? It can be
>defined that all sources are concatenated (and it may make sense in GCPM
>examples). However if content is from multiple files concatenation in
>layout can be complicated. Regions module [1] hints that ³quotations²
>thread can have multiple sources. I am not convinced however that use
>cases that call for source concatenation can¹t be solved better by
>simpler means. Perhaps that should be optionalŠ

If multiple sources have the same 'flow:into(content)', all sources are
concatenated using the document order of the elements. Actually, all the
elements participating inside a flow thread will be rendered as children
of an anonymous block that spans across all the regions assigned to the
specified thread.



 
>4) Œdisplay¹ on Œflow:into¹
>Is it important that Œflow-thread¹ is only applicable to blocks? If that
>element becomes the root element of content of a flow region, is it any
>different HTML from another source being in an iframe? Then whatever is
>applicable to HTML element should apply thereŠ Œdisplay:table¹ should
>work fineŠ

In the latest specification, the 'flow:into' applies to any element, not
just blocks. It will render the same as if all the 'flow:into' elements
were children of a block element. That block element will be filled across
the regions.


 
>5) Region-based styling
 
>It is different in the new draft, it is scoped and actually possible to
>implement (although still not easy).
 
>It is now a strong override (higher specificity than Œstyle¹ property)  -
>that makes it strong and really unambiguous. But it is now very different
>in concept and behavior from first-line.
 
>Can I ask again ­ what are use cases for Œcontent-style¹?
>
 
>It *can* be similar to Œfirst-line¹ if applied at first page:
 
>                p::first-page { color:blue; } ­ this won¹t affect H1 or
>explicit colors within a <p>
>                *::first-page { color:blue !important; } ­ really makes
>everything blue
 
>It is more complicated if regions/pages other than first want to style
>contentŠ  
 
>[1]http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-regions/Overview.src.html
>[2]http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-css3-gcpm-20070504/
><http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-css3-gcpm-20070504/>

We initially thought about a 'first-region' concept, but then we wanted to
extend it to all the regions, hence the 'content-style' property.

As an example, we have attached 2 images: the first image,
"region-styling1", presents a horizontal layout while the second image,
"region-styling2", presents the same content in a vertical layout.

In both cases, the text is composed from several paragraphs that have the
same 'flow:into(presentation)' property. The presentation is split between
two regions (with the same 'content:from(presentation)'), that are styled
separately. The left region has black background and white text, while the
right region has a different color for background and text.

As you can see in the picture "region-styling1" above, the last sentence
in the left region starts in the left region and continues in the right
region. Depending on the region in which the words fall, they are styled
differently.

When used with media queries and a possible different orientation, the
content can still dynamically fill the 2 regions and also be styled
differently. The second image, "region-styling2", has the same content in
a vertical layout.

Mihnea