Re: font-size and accents, again

"L. David Baron" wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 26 Nov 1999 22:41:49 -0800, erik@netscape.com (Erik van der
> Poel) wrote:
> >
> > Chris Lilley wrote:
> > > So it seems that a corollary of that is that padding should be set to
> > > (as a minimum) whatever leading is added, as a good design rule.
> >
> > No, the padding is outside the content height, and the content height is
> > the line box height if there is only one line, and the line box height
> > is the inline box height if there is only one inline element, and the
> > inline box height is the line-height of that inline element.
> 
> That's actually not true.  It's a known error in CSS2 that has not yet
> appeared in the errata.  I reported it to css2-editors a while ago and
> the discussion following my report confirmed it was an error.

Did the discussion occur on an archived mailing list? I may want to take
a look.

> The
> padding and border of inline elements fit vertically around the
> *font-size* as the height of the box, whereas the line-height is only
> the logical height used for placement of the inline box within the line
> box and computing the size of the line box.

I think it's wrong to choose that definition. If a style sheet author
wants to make sure that glyphs don't bleed outside their background,
they must now set not only the line-height but also the padding. That's
a bit too much. It would be easier for authors if the padding and border
of an inline element were added to the *line-height* of that element
(not the font-size). Then the author can select a good line-height to
make sure glyphs in successive lines don't collide, and that
automatically makes the background tall enough to encompass all glyphs
vertically. (The default padding is zero, right?)

Erik

Received on Saturday, 27 November 1999 12:22:44 UTC