[csswg-drafts] [css-content] target-counter(): Need to have number format details in source markup is a problem

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

== [css-content] target-counter(): Need to have number format details in source markup is a problem ==
This is really an issue with how page number formatting details are specified but the issue is exposed in the current requirements on target-counter().

In a publication that has pages numbered with different formats, e.g., frontmatter that is lower-roman and body pages that are not or folio-by-chapter documents the current design provides no way for target-counter() to know, based on the referenced page context, what the number format is.

This is a problem because it means that the producer of the source document (most likely a transform that generates the elements that are rendered as page number references) must know, for a given target element, what page number formatting rules will be applied to it.

But currently those rules are only defined in the counter() references in the page edge regions that contain page number references.

This means that the source has to be authored (or generated) with a-priori knowledge of what page number formatting will be applied, or at least know that a given element is within a context that will be given a specific page number format (e.g., it knows it's in frontmatter or the body or whatever).

But the mapping of elements to page sequences or specific ranges of page format styles is not necessarily consistent from design to design for the same source.

A better solution would be to define the page number formatting details on the page sequence, which in CSS means in the @page rule. XSL-FO's fo:page-sequence element provides a model of the properties needed to fully specify the rules for formatting page numbers.

Please view or discuss this issue at https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/1107 using your GitHub account

Received on Thursday, 16 March 2017 09:18:51 UTC