Re: Relationships between display, position and float ?

Marc Attinasi wrote:
> 
> Does anybody know what to motivation was for mandating that a floated
> element's display be changed to 'block' rather than just ensuring that
> it is _a_ block of some kind? 

I think the problem is general terminological inexactitude with respect
to the terms 
'block' and 'block-level', which I have pointed out on at least one
previous occasion. It is undoubtedly an error.
 
> Please forgive me if this has already been posted: 

Yes. See the thread from November 1999 called 'Yet another error in
float' (there are quite a few...). Here's a summary
[http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/1999Nov/0218.html]:

--- Ethan Fremen <mindlace@majordomo.net> wrote:
> Matthew Brealey wrote:
> > But "if 'float' has a value other than 'none',
> > 'display' is set to 'block' and the box is
> >      floated", and so list-item, table, etc become
> > block elements, which can't be right.
> > 
> 
> Er, that is right, because if it's floating, then
> everything else has to wrap around it, so it needs
> to be a block.

No it isn't:
<example>
1. A list item (display: list-item)
</example>
If 'display' is set to 'block', it becomes
<example>
A list item (no marker glyph)
</example>

It may be a block, but it is not 'block' (it is stated
in the spec that things in quotes refer to property
values), so 'block' means display: block, which is
mutually exclusive with display: list-item.

If it said that the element becomes a block-type
element or something similar, this interpretation
would be admissible, but at present it is not.

> I know David Baron is
> aware of the issue but I only have access to the archives so I'm not
> sure if he already put out a query or suggestion.

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/1999Nov/0194.html was his
input to that thread (although he appears to have changed his mind (or
else I wasn't making myself clear)).

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Received on Tuesday, 6 June 2000 07:12:50 UTC