Re: [csswg-drafts] [css-overflow-4] Unexpected behavior of `continue: discard` on multicolumn containers with spanners (#8721)

> Nothing overflows the columns in the test at all, also not 16 - 20, so I don't understand why we should drop just those.
I haven't wrapped my head around the entire concept yet, and I suppose I don't understand what the use case for continue: discard is (apart from tidying up the CSS regions spec?).

Here's how I think about it. The first 3 columns in that example are the natural columns of the element. Given how the layout is set up, you get that many columns, sized that way, regardless of how much content there is. So as you increase the number of lines from 1 to 15, from the 6th onward they would overflow (in block axis) the first column and instead fragment into the second "natural" column, and from the 11th onward they would overflow the second column and fragment into the third, but once you've reached end of the third, there's no-where to go unless you create additional columns. That makes the 4th column overflow the multi-column container in a way the previous 3 don't. And because columns are filled/created based on content that would otherwise overflow (columns) in the block direction, they are relevant to this discussion in a way that inline-overflow wouldn't be.

I kind of agree that this definition isn't as straighforward as the typical overflowing in the block/inline direction, but I think it's conceptually consistent: lines 16-20 are the content which doesn't fit the normal content-holding area of the element as you fill it in the block direction. The parts of the 3 natural columns that aren't over yellow background could also arguably be called block overflow, but I find it more useful to think of them as just fitting in the normal content-holding area of the multi-column container (which in this case, happens to be made of columns that are bigger than the element itself).

-- 
GitHub Notification of comment by frivoal
Please view or discuss this issue at https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/8721#issuecomment-3290677720 using your GitHub account


-- 
Sent via github-notify-ml as configured in https://github.com/w3c/github-notify-ml-config

Received on Monday, 15 September 2025 06:31:46 UTC