[csswg-drafts] [css-display] Display values for <br> and <wbr>

AndySky21 has just created a new issue for 
https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts:

== [css-display] Display values for <br> and <wbr> ==
[display-outside 
values](https://drafts.csswg.org/css-display/#typedef-display-outside)

`<br>` and `<wbr>` elements were originally meant to be rendered 
[according to a `content` 
property](https://www.w3.org/TR/html5/rendering.html#phrasing-content-0).
 That was first changed for `<br>`, probably because [`content` is not
 optimized for 
performance](https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-bugzilla/2015Mar/0019.html).
 Nor was that property usable with `::after` for legacy reasons: it 
could break those pages using `br::after`, because authors' rule would
 override the line break instead of adding something to it. The 
pseudo-element could have been used for `<wbr>`, though.

On September 2014, when `<br>` had been turned into `display-outside: 
newline` since at least two months, it was decided that [`<wbr>` could
 become something 
similar](https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=26264): and 
thus `display-outside: break-opportunity` was born.

Two years have passed and still there's no trace of either display 
value. Googling it out, I noticed that [it was discussed briefly on 
Feb 23, 2015](https://logs.csswg.org/irc.w3.org/css/2015-02-23/) (one 
year and a half ago), when performance considerations were the only 
obstacle to reverting both elements back to the `content` scenario 
(and as of now [content apparently applies to real elements only with 
image and URL 
values](https://drafts.csswg.org/css-content/#content-property) - 
which is not sure either).

Now I'd like to ask you a couple of questions:

1. Was the `display-outside` solution deemed not viable, despite the 
fact that [browser vendors would have preferred such a 
solution](https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-bugzilla/2015Mar/0022.html)?
 What are the considerations against it?
2. In case it cannot be used, how likely is it that `content: 
<string>` applies to at least a subset of HTML elements and how bad 
would the performance impact be?
3. Will either of the scenarios above be compatible with HTML spec 
concept of [styling 
`<br>`](https://w3c.github.io/html/textlevel-semantics.html#the-br-element)
 (and possibly `<wbr>`)?

Related issue: https://github.com/w3c/html/issues/586

Please view or discuss this issue at 
https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/610 using your GitHub 
account

Received on Saturday, 15 October 2016 20:31:05 UTC