Re: CSS 2: Table Cells and the "line-height" Property

Ian,

    Thanks for your reply -- it was very thoughtful and worthwhile. But I'm
still trying to decide if you are describing the CSS 2 box model as it
exists, or if you are explaining how the Mozilla team have concluded it must
be interpreted for purposes of its own implementation. If it's the latter, I
would find that a worthwhile discussion. But what I'm really after is an
explanation of what the existing CSS 2 recommendation specifies.
    You wrote:

> In conclusion: Yes, the size of inline replaced elements does play a
> part, but they still have to be baseline aligned, the position of the
> baseline is decided by the parent block element's font, and the line
> box has a minimal size set by the parent block element's line-height.

    But the CSS 2 recommendation, section 17.5.3 [1], states:

    "The baseline of a cell is the baseline of the first line box in the
cell. If there is no text, the baseline is the baseline of whatever object
is displayed in the cell, or, if it has none, the bottom of the cell box."

    An image does not have a baseline, per se, does it? Or if it does, my
assumption is that it would be the bottom of the image. Your explanation is
in contradiction with 17.5.3, as I read it.
    David Baron, in a personal email to me several weeks ago, argued for his
interpretation of the recommendation because "that's the only interpretation
that doesn't yield weird results around changes in font size." But instead,
apparently, the Mozilla interpretation yields weird results with images and
page-layout in general.
    Also, are there others in the working group who are willing to help
clarify these apparent discrepancies of interpretation, especially members
who are not part of the Mozilla development team? Ian has offered some
excellent feedback, but I am also interested in a broader perspective.

P.S. - Ian, you are a master of ASCII art!

James Aylard

1. http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/tables.html#height-layout

Received on Tuesday, 20 March 2001 19:23:18 UTC