Re: [css-regions][css-overflow] enhancing overflow:fragments use case 2

On Jan 26, 2014 11:33 PM, "L. David Baron" <dbaron@dbaron.org> wrote:

[snio]
>
> Nor, for that matter, is it clear to me whether the APIs we expose
> the box tree through should just expose things like fragments and
> flows, or whether they should also expose other cases where the box
> tree differs from the content tree (for example, anonymous table
> objects, anonymous blocks when a block contains both blocks and
> inlines, block-within-inline fixup).

I have actually been thinking about this myself.  I agree this could use at
least some more thought and discussion lest we shoot ourselves in the
foot.

>
> In all cases, exposing details gives authors more information about
> what's going on underneath.  It also requires us to do substantial
> amounts of work to align implementations and specifications where
> they currently differ.  There are many places in CSS where
> implementations don't actually construct the box tree that's
> specified in the spec, but they produce results indistinguishable
> from the spec's results.  If we were to expose the box tree via an
> API, in some of these cases we'd probably want to adjust some or all
> implementations to match the spec, but in others we may well want to
> adjust the spec to match implementations, because the spec specifies
> the boxes that it does only for the results they lead to, and not
> for whether the API exposed is sensible.  So exposing box tree
> details interoperably could be a lot of work.

This might not be a terrible thing, and maybe we can come up with a
progressive solution that doesn't require an all or nothing answer at
once?  Maybe the only way to know is to dig into discussions?
>
> -David
>
> --
> 𝄞   L. David Baron                         http://dbaron.org/   𝄂
> 𝄢   Mozilla                          https://www.mozilla.org/   𝄂
>              Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
>              What I was walling in or walling out,
>              And to whom I was like to give offense.
>                - Robert Frost, Mending Wall (1914)