Re: [csswg-drafts] [css-anchor-position] What does "using anchor positioning" mean? (#12552)

The Houdini Task Force just discussed `[css-anchor-position] What does "using anchor positioning" mean?`, and agreed to the following:

* `RESOLVED: the dialog alignment keys off of pos area if it is the initial value`
* `RESOLVED: the pos attachment to scrollable area keys off of whether you found default anchor`

<details><summary>The full IRC log of that discussion</summary>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: we have some behaviors that change if using anchor pos<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...which containng block use when attached to scrollable element<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...whole scrollable area or initial cont block<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...also new alignment keyword<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: that's all for now<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: for these there are 2 diff directions<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...1 is only care about position area prop<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...the other is care about either pos area or anchor functions<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: also anchor pos set to non initial vls<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> iank_: agree<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...that encapsulates pos area<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: not quite<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> iank_: you can detect if you have invalid anchor..?<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...to resolve anchor func need to know if valid<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...so can key off of that<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: has to be from non initial value<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> iank_: ??<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: it's not. Need to care about popovers but may not be using anchor pos for that. Should not be treated as this by default<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: initial is auto<br>
&lt;fantasai> The position-anchor property initial value is 'auto', which looks up implicit anchors<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> re-adding the "implicit" keyword to position-anchor, to explicitly indicate your'e using the implicit ancchor<br>
&lt;fantasai> so you can have a default anchor without having set anything<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: we can't key off of initial val<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: should be able to<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...same as saying pos area top left. Indicating intent<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: yes but...yeah<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...you have pos anchor property. You can have it set to auto and can be anchor pos<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: &lt;whiteboarding><br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...using anchor pos is one option any of these, or any subset<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...anchor functions dont show up in comp value<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ..I wonder if we can say pos anchor and pos area trigger it<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...or just pos area<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> iank_: just keying of pos area creates delta. It changes to using scrollable cont block<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...I want to avoid that<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: when using anchor function you do run into the same issue<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> iank_: exactly<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: just limit to pos anchor and pos area<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...just want to set anchor pos anyways, and you get scrolling behavior<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: right but you are not going to set anchor pos to non-none<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> TabAtkins: you can, if we re-add the 'implicit' keyword<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: don't understand why opposed to implicit keyword<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: small set of people who are going to know how to do it that way<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: another reason to add it, more that are added, mult things, authors will want to be able to choose<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: no one is going to want to do this to change how anchoring to the correct element, should not be about magic side effects<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: you are imposing this now<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: more obvious to key off of all 4 if possible<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> kizu: when they apply<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: none of the behavior changes matter unless abspos<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> kizu: if we define this and want to use it somewhere else for some reason<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: alt we need to track if we have a default anchor<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...can key off of that, even if implicit<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: can't do that because of popover, breaks popover. They have implicit anchor but don't use it<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...that's intentional<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...the presence of imp anchor can't be the key<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: maybe key off of pos area and the functions<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ntim: agree<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: that's fine<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: if you have non inintial and anchor and fallbacks, the last doen't use anchor pos, do you still want the switches to apply?<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> iank_: warry of all anchor functs. Prefer anchor areas and non-initial<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: that won't work with popover<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: we already have 2 sources of imp anchors. We could add two keywords: popover and pseudo<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...we have to do it at some point<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: don't want magic<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...nobody will use that property to get magic behavior<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...initial val of anchor is auto. Sometimes gives you an anchor and sometimes not<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> iank_: popover is fixedpos by default. Doesn't matter<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: that's correct<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> iank_: fixedpos isn't going to use scrollable cont block. Won't matter<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...pos area and non-initial pos anchor works<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...for limited case of scrollable cont block. Other cases might be diff in future<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: the dialog keyword depends on using anchor pos<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...so having auto to trigger that, then its broken. You need to be using it<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...which is unfortunate if you want to use funcitons and cant trigger<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: if youre using anchor function to do anchor pos, youre other inset is auto. Because of this not going to pay attention to alignment at all<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> iank_: single insets ignore alignment?<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: what?<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> iank_: only when using pos area<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: that switch is keyed to pos area. That's why we wanted to switch to this key<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: can prob get away with keying off of pos area<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...if not using pos area, you aren't depending on alignment anymore<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: I suppose<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...if you have a popover that pos with top and left anchor function, assuming dialog keyword gives you right sizing behavior...<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: auto gives fit content sizing, that's what it does<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...key off of pos anchor<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: more concerned about the other one working with manual insets<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: scrollable imcb ?? don't need to worry about compat<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...is someone likely using popover with anchor pos?<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: prob not, use fixedpos instead<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: might be able to key off of anchor pos property, no do I have an anchor<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...or key off of pos area and anchor functions<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: don't like diff signals if we can avoid it<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: don't mind too much<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ....what would authors expect for scrollable cont block<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...all of these are weird<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...it can create weird cases<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: if you use anchor you intent to use anchor pos. Ok with fallback getting that behavior<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> iank_: I prefer simple, key off non-initial instead<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: can't be non initial<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...Needs to be if you have default anchor<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...need to check are initial value or did you find anchor<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...or third do we have a default anchor or do we have non initial default anchor<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...not sure which<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: can do 2 default anchor things<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> if the property is non-auto *or* you have an implicit anchor<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> iank_: may specify but not define it<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ....we do key off of if we find default anchor elsewhere so would lean on that more by default<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: ok<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> iank_: can revisit<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: scrollable case is if you found a default anchor<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: make our attachment auto go one way or the other<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: dialogs don't have a default anchor<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: no<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ...Mason is fine with breaking issues in popover if it allows us to do better things<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> PROPOSED: the dialog alignment keys off of pos area if it is the initial value<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> RESOLVED: the dialog alignment keys off of pos area if it is the initial value<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> PROPOSED: the pos attachment to scrollable area keys off of whether you found default anchor<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ntim: what does default anchor mean<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> TabAtkins: if we find valid anchor, other things care, this would be one more<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> ntim: that's the only one<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> fantasai: yes<br>
&lt;alisonmaher> RESOLVED: the pos attachment to scrollable area keys off of whether you found default anchor<br>
</details>


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Received on Thursday, 21 August 2025 13:49:24 UTC