- From: Bert Bos <Bert.Bos@sophia.inria.fr>
- Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 21:13:22 +0200 (MEST)
- To: www-style@w3.org
ValerieGSharp writes: > Matthew Brealey wrote: [...] > > But that this is so is completely the result of chance. In particular, > > you have floated an element without observing the spec requirement that > > such elements have an explicitly set width (although I firmly believe > > (see my proposal > > (http://richinstyle.com/proposals/floatproposal.html#width)) it should > > be removed). It is indeed attractive to allow 'width: auto' on floating elements to automatically find a "reasonable" width, similar to the way tables get their width. But it is also a performance hit and an extra complexity for the programmers. When I asked some programmers a few years back, they said: "Please, not another table layout algorithm!" However, it seems that opinions have changed. I have the impression (please correct me if I'm wrong) that programmers are now willing to implement auto-sizing for floats, and leave it to page authors to decide whether they want the performance penalty or not. The suggested algorithm could be relatively straightforward (at least to describe, not necessarily to implement): lay the contents out to the full width of the containing block, just like for a block element, except when the box can be made narrower without introducing extra line breaks or more overflow. This would be the same algorithm as for the proposed 'display: inline-block', so it seems we'll need the code anyway. Bert -- Bert Bos ( W 3 C ) http://www.w3.org/ http://www.w3.org/people/bos/ W3C/INRIA bert@w3.org 2004 Rt des Lucioles / BP 93 +33 (0)4 92 38 76 92 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France
Received on Wednesday, 9 August 2000 15:13:27 UTC