Re: [CSS21] zindex.html "element" terminology

On 16/07/2012 08:39, Anton Prowse wrote:
> On 16/07/2012 07:00, Peter Moulder wrote:
>> On Sun, Jul 15, 2012, Anton Prowse wrote in one thread:
>>
>>> [Despite the fact that Appendix E is written in terms of the
>>> stacking context and its descendants being elements not boxes,
>>> the proposal relies on the term "block container" which is
>>> currently a box term that's undefined for elements.  It would be
>>> great if we could just define "block container element"
>>> sensibly.]
>>
>> and in another thread:
>>
>>> Recently I hit upon yet another place in the spec where the
>>> context is elements and where the spec needs to be updated to
>>> refer to block containers: Appendix E. [1]  The new text will be
>>> incongruous if we don't define "block container element".
>>
>> The above two both contain something of an error in that although
>> Appendix E uses the word "element", it's explicit that it uses the
>> word in a special sense (see E.1, where it's defined to mean
>> something quite a lot like "box"; and the phrase "For each box that
>> is a child of that element" also suggests a very box-like
>> understanding of what Appendix E means by "element").
>>
>> Thus, it's wrong or at least misleading to describe appendix E as
>> being about "elements and not boxes".
>
> D'oh!  Thanks for pointing that out.  I was aware of that in the
> past, but I certainly had forgotten that when working on Appendix E
> the other day.

...although that special treatment doesn't actually help in any of the 
cases that I'm currently handling, because the only thing it does is to 
include /anonymous/ boxes under the umbrella of the word "element".  The 
boxes that I'm concerned about are never anonymous, because they are the 
principal boxes of real elements and pseudo-elements, plus the table 
boxes of table or inline-table elements (which are not anonymous despite 
not being principal).

Aside: in fact, I would argue that the marker box of a list item isn't 
anonymous either, so the example given in E.1 to illustrate the 
redefining of "element" isn't relevant.

Cheers,
Anton Prowse
http://dev.moonhenge.net

Received on Monday, 16 July 2012 07:12:18 UTC