CSS3[the box model]: Overflow values

Good morning, 

In addition to the existing values for overflow I would like to propose the addition of "grow" or "stretch" or "resize" possibly with "-x" and "-y" variants. 

The reason is simple. I have often had it where I need to reposition various elements with another block. A good example would be when you have a form where you want the labels to be left aligned and the field controls to be left aligned at some arbitrary position. The div in which you've put them has a border and 10px of margin on the top and bottom. 

Now, there are two ways you can do all your alignment (at least today). The first is to float your label to the left and the second is to absolutely position it to the left. The problem is that both of these take the label out of the flow. As a result, when you have a label that takes up more vertical space than the control, the bottom border will run behind the label. If you've floated then the next div will not overlap if you've set clear:both on it, but you've lost your bottom margin. 

This example is just one possibility where it would be useful. Other  uses would be where you have a multiple column layout where each column has different information (as opposed to the CSS3 columns where content would flow across multiple columns), particularly if there was a footer of some sort below. 

Basically I'm suggesting that there should be some way to say that one could say "The extent of this block is the smallest pair of dimensions that fully contains all its children"

I don't know if its too late in the game to make this sort of change to the working draft. I'd really like to see it make it in since I feel that it should be something that a lot of people will like to see. 

Adam


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Received on Tuesday, 27 August 2002 15:14:59 UTC