- From: Ian Turner <vectro@stop.mail-abuse.org>
- Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 16:01:36 -0800 (PST)
- To: David Eisenberg <david@catcode.com>
- cc: www-style@w3.org, Bert Bos <Bert.Bos@sophia.inria.fr>
Perhaps it would be best to provide a way to specify the box size, rather than the content size. I can think of other cases where it would be preferable to specify the box size, as well. Ian On Fri, 2 Mar 2001, David Eisenberg wrote: > Background > ========== > Many web designers make websites using dimensions in percentages to keep > the ratios of areas on the screen in pleasing proportion as the user agent > window shrinks or grows. This liquid design becomes difficult with > standards-compliant CSS, since a width specification describes only the > content box, and not the padding, borders, or margins. Thus, these > classes > > .index-class { width: 25%; margin: 5px; padding: 6px; } > .content-class { width: 75%, margin: 3px; padding: 4px; } > > will not give you a nice liquid layout; the total width is > 100% plus 36 pixels (margin plus padding times two). > > For a detailed example, see page four of the article at > http://www.alistapart.com/stories/journey/, where > the author says, > > "I couldn't exactly write this in my Style Sheet: > {width: 75% AND PLEASE IGNORE THE PADDING}" > > Although CSS-3's box-sizing property > (see http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-userint#box-sizing) > addresses much of the problem, the following proposal may be > independently useful: > > Proposal > ========== > Expand the syntax of CSS to include DIMENSION-EXPRESSION, defined as > > (DIMENSION | PERCENTAGE) ( + | - ) ( DIMENSION | PERCENTAGE) > > Thus allowing you to solve the liquid layout problem by specifying > > .index-class {width: 25%-22px; margin: 5px; padding: 6px; } > .content-class {width: 75%-14px; margin: 3px; padding: 4px; } > > Comments/Consequences > ===================== > 1) Parsing a length would become more difficult; since I am not a > computer science kind of guy, I am not sure if they could be > parsed unambiguously. > > 2) I am not proposing a full expression language with parentheses > and multiplication/division/modulo operators; just addition and > subtraction. I believe this is sufficient to meet the needs of people > who want liquid layouts. > > 3) The proposal allows mixing of units with a straightforward and > clear syntax. > > --- > J. David Eisenberg > http://catcode.com/ >
Received on Saturday, 3 March 2001 19:02:53 UTC