CSS3 Text

Better late than never...

http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-css3-text-20021024/#justification-prop :
   |
   | It affects the text layout only if 'text-align' is set to 'justify'.
   | That way, UA's that do not support this property will still render
   | the text as fully justified, which most of the time is at least
   | partially correct.

I did't quite understand what was meant here. Indirectly, Etan's
comments cleared it up, but the text still doesn't explain what
it means. Perhaps rewriting the first sentence as
    For the justification to take effect, 'text-align' must
    be set to 'justify'.
and putting the second sentence in parentheses would clear it up.

   | The text-justification behavior of textual components is guided
   | by the script classification of the characters. The 'text-script'
   | property allows to modify the behavior of these components.
   |   Depending on the text-justify value, spacing may be altered
   | between words or letters.

Seem to be missing a direct object. But, really, the whole bit
is unnecessarily convoluted. It can be shortened to
     "Depending on the script classification of the characters
      and the text-justify value, spacing may be altered between
      words or letters or both."

   | newspaper
   |   Selects the justification behavior in which both inter-word and
   |   inter-letter spacing can be expanded or reduced to spread the
   |   text across the whole line. Also, text distribution on any given
   |   line may depend on the layout or the contents of the previous or
   |   the following several lines. This is the significantly slower
   |   and more sophisticated type of the full justify behavior
   |   preferred in newspaper and magazines, as it is especially useful
   |   for narrow columns. For example, typically, compression is tried
   |   first. If unsuccessful, expansion occurs: inter-word spaces are
   |   expanded up to a threshold, and finally inter-letter expansion
   |   is performed. >>>>>This<<<<< is applied to all scripts groups
   |   except Devanagari and other South Asian writing systems using
   |   baseline connectors.

What does 'This' refer to?

   | Further explanation about multi-column layout can be found in the
   | CSS3 Multi-layout module.

Should be "CSS3 Multi-column layout module".

   | kashida
   |   Plays the same role as inter-ideograph but for Arabic through
   |   the Kashida effect. That is, no letter spacing occurs for other
   |   scripts.

You should mention that this depends on the text-kashida-space
property and that if text-kashida-space is zero (which is the
default) there will be no kashida effect

http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-css3-text-20021024/#last-line-alignment-prop :
   | justify
   |    The last line will be justified like the other lines, using the
   |    justification type set by the 'text-justify' property.

What happens if the other lines are not justified?

http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-css3-text-20021024/#wrap-option-prop
   |
   | This property controls whether or not text wraps when it reaches
   | the flow edge of its containing block box.

Why is it called 'wrap-option' and not just 'wrap' or 'text-wrap'?

   | ... preserved line feed characters (U+000A) ...

What happens when there's a line-separator character (U+2028)?
This doesn't seem to be dealt with anywhere in the draft.
Likewise for paragraph separators (U+2029).

   | emergency
   |    The text is wrapped like for the 'wrap' case, except that the
   |    line-breaking algorithm will allow as a last resort option a
   |    text wrap after the last character which can fit before the
   |   >ending-edge of the line<, independently of 'line-break' and
   |    word-break' properties.

What is the ending-edge of the line? This isn't defined anywhere.

   |    For example, this deals with the situation of very long words
   |    constrained in a fixed-width container with no scrolling
   |    allowed.

What happens in a fixed-width container if scrolling *is* allowed?

http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-css3-text-20021024/#white-space-props :
   |
   | In addition, line feed characters can be inserted in generated
   | content by using the '\A' string. The behavior of these
   | inserted line feed characters is identical to original line
   | feed characters part of the source document and is controlled
   | by the same set of properties.

What happens if I insert a carriage return? A CRLF sequence?

   | The choice of the resulting character is conditioned
                                              ^^^^^^^^^^^
I think "determined" might be more accurate than "conditioned".

   | The choice of the resulting character is conditioned by the
   | >>script property of the characters<< preceding and following
   | the line feed character.

This implies that the choice of character is determined by
the CSS script property's value for the element(s) containing
these characters. Is that what is meant? If so, how does it
interact with 'auto' text-script?

   | A sequence of white space characters with one or more line
   | feed character is rendered similarly to a single line feed
   | character.                 ^^^^^^^^^

The "similarly" implies that there is a difference. What is
the difference?

   | When white-space characters are collapsed for rendering
   | purpose, the style applied to the collapsed set is the one
   | that would be applied to first white-space character of the
   | set.

What kind of style? Just white-space collapsing style or
underlining, too?

   | The result of the transformation can be treated by
   | subsequent CSS processing (including white space collapsing).

It can, surely, but will it?

   | This allows multiple consecutive linefeed characters to be
   | collapsed into a single linefeed.

Rewrite as "This collapses multiple consecutive linefeed
characters into a single linefeed."

You're not allowing this behavior; you're specifying that this
*is* what should happen. There's no need to be wishy-washy
about it.

(This is an example of when to *avoid* the passive voice.)

   | ignore | preserve | ignore-if-before-linefeed |
   | ignore-if-after-linefeed | ignore-if-surrounding-linefeed

What's with all the 'if's? This is code here, not English.
It should be clearly expressed, but it does not have to
make a sentence. Clear /and/ concise, please.

   | This property specifies the treatment of space (U+0020)
   | and other white-space characters except for linefeeds
   | (U+000A), since >>their<< treatment is determine by the
   | linefeed-treatment property.        ^^^^^^^^^^^^

"their"'s antecedent is a bit ambiguous. You might want to
consider putting "except for linefeeds, since their treatment
is determined by the linefeed-treatment property" in
parentheses.

"is determine" --> "is determined" (missing 'd')

That's all for today.

~fantasai

Received on Sunday, 15 December 2002 05:55:56 UTC