RE: [css regions] Region "balancing"

± From: David Hyatt
± Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2011 1:05 PM
± 
± On Oct 13, 2011, at 2:38 PM, Alan Stearns wrote:
± 
± >> 
± >> Potentially sure. It can be expensive for columns too.
± > 
± > This use case doesn't make sense to me. If I'm laying out two regions 
± > per page in a page template and the content runs for ten pages, I do 
± > not want all 20 regions to balance. I want pages 1-19 to lay out as 
± > much content fits on the page, then have the two columns on page 20 
± > balance against each other.
± > 
± 
± Right. That's what would happen. As I said, I believe region balancing should 
± exist and behave like column balancing, which would also only balance the two 
± columns on page 20 (unless you had forced breaks on earlier pages that caused 
± them to have less content, in which case you might balance on those pages as 
± well).
± 
± In nested pagination contexts (columns on pages, etc.), balancing only occurs 
± per-page. It doesn't cross pages.

I believe we've touched on region balancing when we were trying to figure out what's a "page" in context of page/column/region breaks in last f2f.

It totally makes sense to me to allow region balancing (optionally) on last page of flow or on page that ends with a page break.

Same however should apply in interactive scenario where "page" is a div representing current magazine "page", or within "overflow:-o-paged-x". In case of print preview or "overflow:paged" UA knows what's a page and which regions are on same page. However in cumstom-built page view (which could for example involve facing-pages layout), there should be a way to group regions into pages, thus indicating where page breaks can be applied (if supported in that media), and where column balancing would make sense.

I have written up a proposal in July for how to designate regions as pages or columns but apparently it hasn't reached www-style... will forward that in a moment.

Alex

Received on Thursday, 20 October 2011 19:05:40 UTC