Re: [css3-regions][css3-gcpm] Thoughts on Plan A and Plan B

David Hyatt wrote:

 > (1) Using "overflow-style" to create pages presentations:
 > http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-gcpm/#paged-presentations I like this
 > idea now that it has been separated from overflow. 

Good! I like it, too :)

 > I would probably
 > use separate properties though for pagination direction as well as
 > whether or not to show controls.
 > 
 > Something like:
 > 
 >   overflow-style: paginated | continuous
 >   overflow-pagination-style: <overflow-pagination-axis> [<overflow-pagination-controls>]?
 >   overflow-pagination-axis: paged-x | paged-y | auto 
       (should have auto for just "doing the right thing" directionally and it should be the default)
 >   overflow-pagination-controls: controls | none

What does the proposed 'auto' value mean? That that page-axis is the
same as the inline axis? We could add it with two new keywords:

   overflow-style: paged | paged-controls  

So that we would have:

   overflow-style: paged | paged-controls | paged-x | paged-y | paged-x-controls | paged-y-controls 

Presumably, these would come in addition to the other values proposed for 'overflow-style'

   scrollbar | panner | move | marquee
   http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-box/#overflow-style

It may be somewhat imbalanced if we add six paged-* values to that propoerty. So, we could do:

   overflow-style: scrollbar | panner | move | marquee | paged

And then have:

   overflow-paged-axis: x | y | auto           /* auto is initial value */
   overflow-paged-controls: auto | custom      /* custom is initial value */

I think this gives us the same expressive power as you suggest, and
the added auto values make the feature easier to use. My proposed
syntax is somewhat shorter ('paginated' -> 'paged', 'x-axis' -> 'x'
etc.). And I don't think we need a shorthand to set axis/controls
(called 'overflow-pagination-style' in your message).

The keywords for 'overflow-paged-controls' are a bit tricky; 'none'
doens't seem right to me, as there may be custom controls. Therefore,
I suggest 'auto' (meaning that the UA automatically adds them) and
'custom' (that a script may add them).

(A personal peeve of mine is when the property and value use the same
words. I hate 'border-collapse: collapse'. Likewise,
'overflow-pagination-controls: controls' would make me grumpy.)

 > (2) We should add a new media type (or query) for when overflow-style:paginated is set.

In Opera's implemenation, we have recently changed from a media type:

   @media paged { ... }

to a media feature:

   @media (paged) { ... }

In both cases, the query asks whether the implementation supports
paged mode (and not whether the document/element is in paged mode).
We can't really query 'settings', can we?

Cheers,

-h&kon
              Håkon Wium Lie                          CTO °þe®ª
howcome@opera.com                  http://people.opera.com/howcome

Received on Tuesday, 21 February 2012 11:47:52 UTC