Re: New Working Draft: Positioning HTML Elements with Ca

Jim King <jimk@mathtype.com> writes:

> But I'm still not sure that positioning shouldn't move the item's
> placeholder with the item.  What is the purpose for leaving a blank gap in
> the page where the item is NOT? 

Ease of implementation, avoiding a reflow of contents.

> I'll give you another example: I have an image and I WANT it to overlap
> something below it, so I drop it with the positioning attributes.  But
> because the image took up space above the line, the box for the line is
> still big, but with nothing in it. 

Use absolute, rather than relative positioning.

> I was hoping that the Positioning spec would add the abilities we
> don't have - especially since they specifically mentioned
> subscripting and superscripting by a precise amount as a
> possible use.

The example is admittedly contrived. The alternative was to use an 
animation example utilizing a scripting language, but I really wanted 
to keep scripting out of this draft. Relative positioning, as I think 
is mentioned in the draft, will likely be used mostly for animation 
effects in scripting environments.

> In general I think it's a hole in CSS relative positioning that needs to be
> filled, whether it is filled by fixing the CSS spec or by making these
> things possible through direct positioning statements (via the positioning
> spec). There is a certain amount of overlap between the two, so it's not
> unreasonable to do it in Positioning.

We expect CSS to continue evolving. As long as we haven't done
anything to prevent future extensions that do what you want, I think
we've succeeded. Like every other software project in the world,
we're constrained by schedule. We do what we can at any given moment,
and try not to break extensibility.

Regards,
--
Robert Stevahn -- mailto:rstevahn@boi.hp.com
208/396-4787 -- HP Business LaserJet Division
[standard disclaimer]

Received on Thursday, 6 February 1997 05:43:31 UTC