Q: More complex page patterns?

Eric W. Sink writes:

 > We'd like to see more flexibility and control over the layout of paged
 > media in CSS.  Specifically, we need multiple columns, as well as things
 > like the ability to flow a story from one container on page N to another
 > container on later page M.
 >
 > We assume that these issues may already be under consideration.  Would
 > someone please summarize any related efforts?

Your requested features are indeed under consideration. A way to
support multiple colums was descibed in the W3C Note "CSS: Potential
Enhancements" [1]. The note laid the ground for CSS2, but
multi-columns were dropped along the way.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-css-potential.html#pgfId=1037998

Text flows from one container to another were discussed in another W3C
Note from 1996: "Frame-based layout via Style Sheets" [2]. Later, the
text flow part was dropped and only the frames remain -- they're known
as "absolute positioning" in CSS2.

[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-layout

Dropping two wonderful features breaks our hearts but is necessary to
ensure that specifications and implementations go hand in hand. Or, at
least that they don't lose sight of each other.

After finishing the CSS2 specification last month, the CSS&FP Working
Group is now enjoying a short moment of luxury when we can indulge in
new feature proposals for CSS3. Your message is therefore well timed
and we take notes. Feedback from you and others on how the
functionality described in the W3C Notes matches your requirements is
welcome.

 > We've worked these ideas out into a design model which seems powerful
 > enough.  However, we have not yet worked out a mapping of our ideas onto a
 > CSS-compatible syntax.  It seemed prudent to mention our idea to this
 > mailing list before doing so.
 > 
 > 1.  Does this kind of feature seem like a reasonable addition to CSS?

Yes. And writing up your ideas using a CSS-based syntax would be very
helpful for the CSS&FP WG when reviewing these extensions.

Regards,

-h&kon

H   ĺ   k   o   n      W   i   u   m       L   i   e
howcome@w3.org      http://www.w3.org/people/howcome
World     W      i     d     e       Web  Consortium

Received on Saturday, 6 June 1998 19:10:40 UTC