Re: [csswg-drafts] [css-text] Reconsider the initial value of the `text-autospace` property (#12386)

The CSS Working Group just discussed ``[css-text] Reconsider the initial value of the `text-autospace` property``, and agreed to the following:

* `ACTION: fantasai to investigate the 'auto' discrepency dbaron noted above`
* `RESOLVED: have normal as the initial value`

<details><summary>The full IRC log of that discussion</summary>
&lt;Rossen3> https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/12386#issuecomment-3243838089<br>
&lt;ydaniv> fantasai:  text-autospace prop has 2 values under question<br>
&lt;ydaniv> ... no-auto<br>
&lt;ydaniv> ... no-autospace<br>
&lt;ydaniv> ... and normal which should be the initial, and gives nicer results<br>
&lt;ydaniv> ... webkit shipped this with no-autospace the inital value, because we haddn't optimized the normal value to work<br>
&lt;ydaniv> ... Chrome raised an issue to change to normal as initial, was some dicussion, the last reslution was to not change, but allow to ship as normal initial value<br>
&lt;ydaniv> ... was some debate whether normal is a good value to have<br>
&lt;ydaniv> ... most ppl on the thread concluded it was the correct default<br>
&lt;ydaniv> ... Koji is skeptical whether this is good for the web<br>
&lt;ydaniv> ... other ppl say we can enable it and it's a good default<br>
&lt;ydaniv> Rossen3: any additional opinions?<br>
&lt;ydaniv> fantasai: I think WebKit would like to align with Chrome<br>
&lt;dbaron> I also notice there's an 'auto' value defined in the &lt;dl> but it's not in the grammar for the &lt;autospace> production.<br>
&lt;ydaniv> ... we would like to solve and ship aligned defualt<br>
&lt;fantasai> s/would like to align with Chrome/agrees with Mozilla/<br>
&lt;ydaniv> Rossen3: do you see this as a blocker?<br>
&lt;ydaniv> fantasai: I'm hopefull this is eventually solveable<br>
&lt;astearns> so keep the spec as-is, treat current implementations as in-progress<br>
&lt;fantasai> s/aligned defualt/normal as the default eventually/<br>
&lt;ydaniv> Rossen3: behavior-wise seems to be alignment and sovleable in terms of perfomance issue<br>
&lt;fantasai> ACTION: fantasai to investigate the 'auto' discrepency dbaron noted above<br>
&lt;ydaniv> jfkthame: we did for  short time had the normal as initial value, and got positive responses,<br>
&lt;ydaniv> ... had some concerns about perf issues, we saw some effect on text layout perf<br>
&lt;dbaron> oh, things are actually ok, the value definition at the top is normal | &lt;autospace> | auto<br>
&lt;ydaniv> ... I'm in favor on moving to normal as initial value, and the hit on perf is worth it<br>
&lt;ydaniv> Rossen3: so behavior benefit is worth it, from what I'm hearing, mostly text heavy sites<br>
&lt;ydaniv> ... other feedback?<br>
&lt;dbaron> (though I do wonder if normal | auto should be combinable with insert | replace)<br>
&lt;ydaniv> ... let's try to resolve, any objections on making normal the default?<br>
&lt;fantasai> -> https://www.w3.org/TR/css-text-4/#default-stylesheet<br>
&lt;ydaniv> jfkthame: we should probably add a rule to UA stylesheet for elements such as code/pre where fixed space alignment is the expectation<br>
&lt;ydaniv> fantasai: we already do that<br>
&lt;fantasai> It's in Appendix C<br>
&lt;ydaniv> Rossen3: still no objections<br>
&lt;ydaniv> RESOLVED: have normal as the initial value<br>
</details>


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Received on Wednesday, 10 December 2025 17:31:53 UTC