- From: CSS Meeting Bot via GitHub <noreply@w3.org>
- Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2025 17:02:34 +0000
- To: public-css-archive@w3.org
The CSS Working Group just discussed `[css-grid-3] Masonry Switch Syntax`.
<details><summary>The full IRC log of that discussion</summary>
<kbabbitt> fantasai: been a whole lot of names suggested<br>
<kbabbitt> ... you can see all of them in the issue<br>
<kbabbitt> ... pulled out the ones where someone said I agree with this other person<br>
<kbabbitt> ... can break down question into what keyword we want, whether we want spaces, grid first or later<br>
<astearns> no to -ed, imo<br>
<kbabbitt> ... one thing we could do is runoff poll, list up to 4 favorite options, see which ones are worth polling<br>
<florian> q+<br>
<kbabbitt> ... one consideration is, webkit is strongly against using masonry<br>
<kbabbitt> ... for 2 reasons: one it's a jargony<br>
<kbabbitt> ... word, specific to js libraries<br>
<lea> +1 on the rationale against masonry<br>
<kbabbitt> ... not a generally applicable term<br>
<kbabbitt> ... we've been talking about masonry layout forever because we didn't have an alternative term<br>
<kbabbitt> ... second reason is that it's a name that is describing an object in real world that reflects [missed]<br>
<kbabbitt> ... in CSS we try to be more directly descriptive<br>
<kbabbitt> ... we don't talk about gutters, we talk about gaps<br>
<kbabbitt> ... so we feel strongly it should not be masonry<br>
<astearns> q+<br>
<lea> packed-grid or grid-pack are my top preferences as well<br>
<kbabbitt> ... our suggestion was packed-grid<br>
<kbabbitt> ... but there were a bunch of others<br>
<kbabbitt> florian: put myself on queue to say largely the same thing<br>
<alisonmaher> q+<br>
<kbabbitt> ... the one that seems least fine is masonry<br>
<astearns> ack florian<br>
<oriol> q+<br>
<kbabbitt> ... only reason it's agreeable is it's the word we've been using<br>
<kbabbitt> ... if it weren't for that library we wouldn't use it<br>
<miriam> q+<br>
<kbabbitt> ... wouldn't formally object but dislike it<br>
<kbabbitt> astearns: probably object to staggered, too hard to spell<br>
<kbabbitt> ... preference for grid-stack<br>
<TabAtkins> I'm also okay with most of these names, but I lean toward grid-stack as my preference because it matches so well to the "grid axis" and "stacking axis" terms that we settled on in the spec - I think those are *good* terms.<br>
<lea> stack makes me personally think of stacking along the Z axis<br>
<kbabbitt> ... since they have grid like behavior in one axis and stacking in other, if we can't do masonry<br>
<SebastianZ> +1 on astearns<br>
<astearns> ack astearns<br>
<kbabbitt> alisonmaher: one reason I don't like packed-grid is that there's already dense packing in masonry as well as grid<br>
<astearns> +1 to that problem with pack, forgot to mention it<br>
<kbabbitt> ... could be confused with dense packing<br>
<florian> grid stack is ok<br>
<TabAtkins> (I am strongly against an `-ed` suffix, tho. We just Don't Do That.)<br>
<kbabbitt> ... personal preference is for masonry<br>
<dholbert> (+1 to alisonmaher on packed sounding like "dense", was gonna say the same)<br>
<astearns> ack alisonmaher<br>
<kbabbitt> oriol: wanted to mention personal confusion with dense grid<br>
<kbabbitt> ... for masonry, everyone on the web calls it masonry<br>
<astearns> ack oriol<br>
<rachelandrew> I think of non-masonry options, I prefer grid-pack or grid-stack they are both easy to say clearly and to write, but I prefer masonry.<br>
<kbabbitt> ... maybe the original meaning of this word in English meaning something different, but reality is nowadays everyone calls it masonry<br>
<bkardell> +1 oriol<br>
<kbabbitt> ... if we choose another word we'll confuse everyone<br>
<rachelandrew> +1 oriol<br>
<kbabbitt> ... even apple in blog post title used masonry word<br>
<florian> q+<br>
<lea> q+<br>
<kbabbitt> ... if they used another word in title, people would be confused<br>
<kbabbitt> ... I think not choosing masonry would create lots of confusion<br>
<kbabbitt> ... so I think we should go with masonry<br>
<astearns> ack miriam<br>
<kbabbitt> miriam: could be convinced by that sort of argument, aslo understand arguments against masonry<br>
<kbabbitt> ... don't like the -ed ones<br>
<kbabbitt> .... don't like confusion with pack and dense packing<br>
<dholbert> q+<br>
<lea> q-<br>
<kbabbitt> ... the onese that stand out to me are grid stack and compact grid<br>
<astearns> ack florian<br>
<kbabbitt> ... those describe best to me what's happening<br>
<kbabbitt> florian: don't entirely buy the argument based on everyone calling it that<br>
<kbabbitt> ... people who ahven't been doing this yet haven't been calling it anything<br>
<kbabbitt> ... the future hopefully is longer than thet pasty<br>
<kbabbitt> ... number of people who will need to learn is much greater than people who already know<br>
<kbabbitt> s/pasty/past/<br>
<bkardell> that's kind of how language works though<br>
<keithamus> q+<br>
<astearns> ack dholbert<br>
<kbabbitt> ... we're still relatively early, those who already know masonry by that name isn't good enough for me<br>
<noamr> q+<br>
<kbabbitt> dholbert: not opposed to stack word in general<br>
<kbabbitt> ... grid-stack in that formulation sounds like a single track<br>
<kbabbitt> ... a stacked grid sounds like better description'<br>
<kbabbitt> ... grid-stack sounds like single track with rows within it<br>
<astearns> zakim, close queue<br>
<Zakim> ok, astearns, the speaker queue is closed<br>
<kbabbitt> ... collapsed-grid and staggered-grid are what I would lean towards<br>
<kbabbitt> ... no strong preferences<br>
<astearns> ack keithamus<br>
<kbabbitt> keithamus: not a huge fan of many names, feel very generick<br>
<kbabbitt> ... stack doesn't imply shrinking<br>
<kbabbitt> ... pack is maybe best of options, also maybe compact or dense<br>
<kbabbitt> ... or I wonder if natural is worth considering<br>
<kbabbitt> ... or balanced<br>
<kbabbitt> ... pack is probably my preference out of those<br>
<astearns> ack noamr<br>
<castastrophe> +q<br>
<lea> q?<br>
<kbabbitt> noamr: stack is conflicting with stacking context, i find that extremely confusing<br>
<lea> +1 noamr<br>
<castastrophe> q+<br>
<kbabbitt> ... something for z-index usually<br>
<kbabbitt> ... as a way to move forward, do one poll without masonry, then discuss masonry vs what we come up with<br>
<astearns> ack fantasai<br>
<kbabbitt> fantasai: wanted to point out that noamr suggested a different tack, semi-grid<br>
<kbabbitt> ... which gets at idea that it's grid in one axis not the other<br>
<florian> I'm ok with semi-grid too<br>
<kbabbitt> ... re: grid-stack variation wiould be that it stays separated<br>
<castastrophe> Just wanted to +1 pack because it's evocative of less gridded layouts; grids and stack to me imply strict lines and order<br>
<kbabbitt> .... 2 different variations, grid stacking in one axis vs both<br>
<kbabbitt> ... 2 possibilities to think about<br>
<kbabbitt> astearns: we're out of time and I'm not seeing consensus yet<br>
<kbabbitt> ... like noamr's idea of doing poll for non-masonry values to see if we can arrive at a single non-masonry alternative<br>
<dholbert> (RE "grid-stack" vs" grid stack", I still don't love it; any "this is a stack" implication just sounds like a single tower rather than multiple towers)<br>
<kbabbitt> ... in addition to the poll it would be useful to know if people have objections to particular non-masonry terms<br>
<kbabbitt> ... suggest we take this back to issue, have a poll, and hopefully take this up again soon<br>
<kbabbitt> fantasai: I will poll the options people advocated for<br>
<lea> I suspect `semi-grid` would not make much sense to most people. to most people grid is not a spectrum from something else to grid. If the spectrum is flex to grid, there is `flex-grid`<br>
<kbabbitt> astearns: for those that tried to get on queue but couldn't please leave a comment in issue, IRC comments probably sufficient but I'd like to see more discussion in issue<br>
<dholbert> ("stacked-grid" or similar avoids that issue to my ear at least - it's a "grid that uses stacking", rather than "a grid that is also a single stack")<br>
</details>
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Received on Wednesday, 22 October 2025 17:02:35 UTC