Re: New CSS1 draft available

Chris Josephs writes:
 > On Fri, 13 Sep 1996, Bert Bos wrote:
 > 
 > > Steve Knoblock writes:
 > >  > 
 > >  > >  - The possibility to combine two or more elements into a single
 > >  > >    block appears more in demand than we thought (e.g., break before
 > >  > >    DT and break after DD, so that a DT is shown `run-in')
 > >  > >
 > >  > 
 > >  > Bert,
 > >  > I have given 'run-in sideheads' some thought. I would like to be able to
 > >  > specify that a heading is run into the next paragraph.
 > > 
 > 
 > Correct me if I'm mistaken, but wasn't this all in an older draft (May,
 > 96) of the CSS1 spec?  If so, what was the reason for removing it?

You're not mistaken. We had a provision for side-by-side boxes
earlier. (We referred to it as the `upside-down Tetris model' since it
caused blocks of text to move up into space left empty by other
boxes.)

However, these boxes couldn't do run-in headers, only side-heads. And
even for those, the difference between putting the heading in a float
and putting it in a side-box appeared not enough to warrant this extra
feature. Some implementers also asked us to take it out. It also
didn't correspond to any easily visualized model (apart from Tetris),
and writing style sheets that used it was difficult.

Simulating columns with side-by-side boxes also only worked up to a
point, and the didn't really replace tables either. So we decided to
take it out and work on real run-ins, real columns and real tables
instead.

 > Also, I noticed that the section on different means on specifying colors
 > was back,  but why is the 0-255 range specified twice?  Wasn't there the
 > option in an earlier draft of specifying color as a floating integer
 > between 0.0 and 1.0??

Yes, there was. But there were no percentages or 0-255 ranges then. We
decided that 0-255 was so common that it was certainly needed, and
that percentages expressed the limits of the range better than
0-1. Using percentages also removed a possible ambiguity: is
rgb(1,1,1) white or (almost) black?

(The doubling of the line about 0-255 is an editing error.)


Bert
-- 
  Bert Bos                                ( W 3 C ) http://www.w3.org/
  http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/People/Bos/                      INRIA/W3C
  bert@w3.org                             2004 Rt des Lucioles / BP 93
  +33 93 65 77 71                 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France

Received on Friday, 20 September 1996 13:19:33 UTC