Floated pseudo-elements

David,

 > I think it should be clarified in the CSS spec that when a pseudo-element is
 > floated, the pseudo-element content is selected before any
 > pseudo-element-specific formatting is applied.

The 'float' property doesn't apply first-line pseudo-elements. From [1]:

  The 'first-line' pseudo-element is similar to an inline element, but
  with certain restrictions. Only the following properties apply to a
  'first-line' element: font properties (5.2), color and background
  properties (5.3), 'word-spacing' (5.4.1), 'letter-spacing' (5.4.2),
  'text-decoration' (5.4.3), 'vertical-align (5.4.4), 'text-transform'
  (5.4.5), 'line-height' (5.4.8), 'clear' (5.5.26).

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1#the-first-line-pseudo-element

The 'float' property applies to first-letter pseudo-elements, but the
content will always end up on one line.

 > I'm not claiming this is a useful example, just that it's better to define
 > general behavior than ad hoc restrictions.

I very much agree with you here. The pseudo-elements in CSS1 are base
on a very general mechanism: their behavior is defined through the
common CSS1 properties. (The drawback of this approach is that it's
hard to align the baseline of a dropcap initial character with the
baseline of the surrounding text.)

Regards,

-h&kon

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Received on Thursday, 18 December 1997 07:03:42 UTC