[css3-writing-modes] "inline-axis" vs. "inline axis"

I believe the CSS3 writing-modes spec uses the terms "inline axis" and
"inline-axis" to mean opposite things. (no-hyphen vs. with-hyphen)
It'd be nice to clear that up.

(For convenience, I'll assume we're dealing with a standard LTR
English-text writing mode.)

"inline axis" is Horizontal
===========================
In section 4.1, the spec uses "inline axis" to indicate a horizontal
line (the axis along which glyphs are aligned):
  # A baseline is a line along the inline axis of a line box
  # along which individual glyphs of text are aligned.
http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-writing-modes/#intro-baselines

"inline-axis" is Vertical
=========================
Section 6.1 defines "inline-axis" as being in the _block_ dimension:
  # inline-axis
  #    The axis in the block dimension, i.e. the
  #    vertical axis in horizontal writing modes
  #    and the horizontal axis in vertical writing
  #    modes.
and it defines "block dimension" as being vertical for english text:
  # block dimension
  #    The dimension perpendicular to the flow of
  #    text with in a line, the vertical dimension
  #    in horizontal writing modes

The explicit "inline-axis" definition seems very counter-intuitive to me
-- perhaps it's just backwards?  (Why would the inline-axis be in the
_block_ dimension, and vice-versa?  Is the wording swapped there?)

Or maybe I'm just misunderstanding the wording?

Thanks,
~Daniel

Received on Monday, 17 September 2012 22:08:57 UTC