Re: [csswg-drafts] [css-anchor-position-1] inset-inline-start: anchor(start) is confusing (#13734)

I mean, that's the problem with logical directions! They rely on a not-obvious-at-the-source directionality, and there are (at least) two valid things they can draw from (sometimes three).

The exact same potential confusion applies to, say, `position-area`, which similarly uses `start` to refer to the CB and `self-start` to refer to the element itself. If you set `position-area: inline-start;`, and then use `inset-inline-end: 10px` to (you believe) push yourself 10px away from the anchor, you might run into *the exact same problem*, where your CB might have an opposite direction, you're actually put on the opposite side from what you expect, and you're still flush against the anchor (the 10px offset is keeping you from touching the CB's side, instead).

These two anchor-pos usages (`position-area: start` and `anchor(start)`) *absolutely* have to refer to the same directions, imo, or else it's just totally confusing. And this happens to be consistent with *every other usage* of start/self-start, like in background-position and others.

(The logical `inset` properties are perhaps a little misnamed, but iirc it's not reasonably possible to have a property name resolve to a direction based on the CB, as that's a layout-tree-time construct and too late for how we want to think about the physical/logical property pairings. We specify this explicitly in CSS Logical; property names are always resolved to physical values according to the element itself, so we just always use the `-start` naming for them.)

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Received on Friday, 27 March 2026 19:18:31 UTC