[csswg-drafts] [css-anchor-position-1] Inconsistent naming of `position-area` values (#12749)

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

== [css-anchor-position-1] Inconsistent naming of `position-area` values ==
There's an odd inconsistency among the values defined for the `position-area` property:

https://drafts.csswg.org/css-anchor-position-1/#position-area-syntax

Specifically, for the `self-*` logical keywords which refer to the box’s own writing mode (rather than the containing block's), the addition of "self" to the value is done inconsistently. So for example, the own-writing-mode version of `inline-start` is `self-inline-start` (with "self" as a prefix), but the own-writing-mode version of `x-start` is given as `x-self-start` (with "self" as an infix).

IMO this is unnecessarily confusing/illogical and will be an annoyance to authors. We should make "self" a prefix in all cases (as is done with "span"), not sometimes a prefix and sometimes an infix.

I propose, therefore, the following renaming of values:

>  x-self-start -> self-x-start
>  x-self-end -> self-x-end
>  y-self-start -> self-y-start
>  y-self-end -> self-y-end

>  span-x-self-start -> span-self-x-start
>  span-x-self-end -> span-self-x-end
>  span-y-self-start -> span-self-y-start
>  span-y-self-end -> span-self-y-end

As far as I'm aware, nobody has yet implemented these values, so renaming them to follow a more consistent pattern should not carry any compatibility risk.

Please view or discuss this issue at https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/12749 using your GitHub account


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Received on Monday, 8 September 2025 14:50:37 UTC