Re: Calling for a massive revamp of Paged Media and GCPM

On 14/01/13 20:00, Håkon Wium Lie wrote:

> How would you recode this example?
>
>    @page { @top-center { content: element(header) }}
>    @page :left { @top-left { content: counter(page) }}
>    @page :right { @top-right { content: counter(page) }}
>    header { position: running(header) }

First, I would entirely drop the top-center and friends. The 16 areas
defined by the spec are ugly hacks to replace the fact we could not
lay out correctly special areas in a page. This is not the case
any more, we have flexbox, grids and slots. In the future, not a
single piece of software will use @top-center and friends if we have
better.

Runnings are about the same. If I consider this code taken from the GCPM
spec:

   title { position: running(header) }
   @page { @top-center {
     content: element(header) }
   }

it mixes content, position, a word "running" that nobody will understand
as what it is. It still relies on the 16 margin boxes that are a weak,
unmaintainable positioning scheme. That scheme is entirely unable to
express the headers or footers of the first Word or OOo document in my
home directory. And I don't even mention the call to element(header)
is a really bad way of saying the @top-center contents come from the
'header' flow. Your proposal is about flows, let's use flows.

Flows are easier to specify, more consistent to what people are used it
in DTP software. Sorry Håkon but running() is really a hack, it's an
attempt to do flows w/o adding a minimal number of new
properties/notation and it's totally suboptimal.

</Daniel>

Received on Monday, 14 January 2013 19:36:14 UTC